BR  85  .S59  1881  i 

Smyth,  Newman,  1843-1925.  j 
The  orthodox  theology  of  to{ 
day 

No, 


THE 


ORTHODOX  THEOLOGY  OF  TO-DAY 


NEWMAN    SMYTH 

AUTHOB  OF  "THK  BEUGIO0S  FEELINQ "  AND  "OLD  FAITHS  IN  NEW  LIOHT" 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
743  AND  745  Broadway 

1881 


OOPYBIOHT  BT 

GHABLES  SCRIBNEB'S  SOKS 
1881 


Trow's 

Printing  and  Bookbinding  Company 

20I-2I3  East  12th  Street 

NEW  YORK 


TGXT     '^ 
COI^TENTS. 

PAOB 

Fbefaoe, y 

I. 

The  Chtjeckes  and  Cbeeds, 13 

n. 

Does  Orthodoxy  Misundebstand  God?    .        .        .         .38 

III. 
Forgiveness  and  Siipfering, 61 

lY. 

Imperfect  Theories  of  the  Future  Life,        .         .         .83 

V. 

Negative  and  Posittve  Elements  in  the  Conception  op 
THE  Future  Life,        .......  108 

YI. 

Social  Immortautt 139 

APPENDIX, 163 


PREFACE. 


These  discourses  were  originally  prepared  in 
answer  to  certain  objections  which  had  been 
urged  against  evangelical  teaching  in  the  col- 
umns of  a  local  newspaper  in  my  own  home,  and 
which  are  often  raised,  in  various  forms,  as  dif- 
ficulties in  the  way  of  the  popular  acceptance 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  churches.  They  are 
now  printed  substantially  as  they  were  first  de- 
livered, as,  in  consenting  to  their  publication,  I 
have  felt  that  the  attempt  to  meet  an  expressed 
want  in  any  one  locality  might  prove  the  most 
hopeful  fidelity  to  a  real  need  of  the  larger 
public  to  which  these  discussions  of  some  vital 
questions  of  Christian  thought  are  now  ad- 
dressed. 

Though  they  were  in  form  a  reply  to  mis- 
conceptions and  objections  urged  upon  the  at- 
tention  of   the   pulpit   in   behalf    of    popular 


vi  PREFACE. 

scepticism,  I  trust  tliat  their  spirit  may  not  be 
found  to  be  controversial.  I  have  sought  rather 
to  avail  myself  of  admitted  difficulties  and  com- 
mon perplexities  concerning  the  doctrines  of  the 
churches,  as  a  background  upon  which  I  would 
bring  out  the  hopeful  convictions  and  assured 
beliefs  of  those  evangelical  scholars  with  whom 
I  find  myself  to  be  most  in  sympathy,  {ind  who, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  are  giving  the  simplest  form, 
and  the  truest  expression,  to  Christian  theology 
at  the  present  time.  The  positions  and  views 
of  these  Christian  thinkers  of  to-day  can  hardly 
be  measured  or  defined  by  any  traditional  lines 
of  division,  or  by  theological  names  derived 
from  the  past.  The  more  recent  phrases  of 
ecclesiastical  separation,  "  Old  School "  and 
"  New  School,"  represent  to  them  issues  of  yes- 
terday rather  than  of  to-day ;  and  the  definitions 
and  phraseology  which  some  who  still  stand 
marking  time  in  those  old  ways  are  careful  to 
maintain,  seem  to  them  utterly  inadequate  de- 
terminations of  the  advanced  line  of  Christian 
reasoning  and  belief  which  they  are  compelled 
to  occupy,  as  they  seek  to  face  the  great  ques- 


PREFACE.  vii 

tions  with  which  faith  is  now  confronted.  They 
do  not  stoop  down  and  watch  anxiously  lest 
the  "foundations"  be  shaken;  but,  knowino- 
that  God's  words  cannot  pass  away,  they  are 
eager  to  look  up  and  face  present  responsibil- 
ities of  Christian  thought,  and  to  catch  what 
revelations  of  truth  may  be  dawning  upon  the 
horizons  of  to-day. 

While,  thus,  in  common  with  an  increasing 
number  of  Christian  thinkers  I  must  disclaim  the 
terms,  and  decline  myself  to  be  classified  by  the 
nomenclature  of  the  schools,  I  would  still  retain 
and  use  as  descriptive  of  a  reverent,  but  pro- 
gressive. Christian  theology  the  old  word  ortho- 
doxy, especially  since  a  distinction  of  no  little 
present  importance  is  coming  to  be  made,  and 
needs  to  be  emphasized,  between  orthodoxy  and 
orthodoxism.  By  orthodoxy  I  would  mean  the 
continuous  historical  development  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Jesus  and  his  apostles ;  and  the  ortho- 
dox habit  or  temper  of  mind  I  would  consider 
to  be  simply  fidelity  to  the  teachings  of  the 
Spirit  of  Truth  throughout  Christian  history, 
as  the  things  of  Christ  have  been  witnessed  to 


viii  PREFACE. 

tlie  cliurcli  in  its  great  confessions,  and  as  the 
words  of  tlie  Lord  are  still  opening  their  mean- 
ings, under  new  providential  lights,  in  the  en- 
larging thought  of  the  Christian  world.  Or- 
thodoxism,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  dogmatic 
stagnation  and  ecclesiastical  abuse  of  ortho- 
doxy. Orthodoxism  is  an  orthodoxy  which  has 
ceased  to  grow — a  dried  and  brittle  orthodoxy. 
Orthodoxism  offers  a  crust  of  dogma  kept  over 
from  another  century;  it  fails  to  receive  the 
daily  bread  for  which  we  are  taught  this  day 
to  pray.  It  has  been  my  desire,  therefore, 
throughout  these  discourses,  to  represent,  so 
truthfully  as  I  may,  the  orthodox  spirit  and  be- 
lief— only  not  the  orthodoxy  of  yesterday,  but 
of  to-day. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  first  of  these 
discourses  was  intended  for  the  relief  of  a  popu- 
lar prejudice  against  all  creeds,  and  the  reasoning 
pursued  should  be  judged  with  reference  to  the 
object  which  I  had  immediately  in  view;  if  I 
had  been  called  to  address  upon  the  same  topic 
an  ecclesiastical  assembly,  my  growing  convic- 
tion of  our  need  of  a  revised  theology,  suited  to 


PREFACE.  ix 

our  scientific  environment,  and  fitted  to  survive 
in  modern  thought,  would  have  led  me  to  lay 
the  stress  of  my  argument  even  more  strongly 
upon  the  desirability  of  a  restatement  of  the 
standards,  particularly  of  my  own,  the  Presby- 
terian chui'ch;  and  the  conservatism  usually 
audible  in  such  assemblies  would  have  relieved 
me  from  the  necessity  of  pleading  that  justice 
be  done  the  old  and  hallowed  forms  of  faith, 
while  urging  timely  preparation  for  the  coming 
of  another  of  the  days  of  the  Son  of  man. 

The  view  of  the  Atonement  which  is  sug- 
gested in  the  third  discourse  seems  to  me  to  be 
in  harmony  with  the  truth  of  Christ  seen  and 
welcomed  by  many  minds  who  have  been  awak- 
ened, by  the  touch  of  Dr.  Bushnell's  magic 
thought,  to  simpler  and  more  purely  moral  con- 
ceptions of  the  work  of  Christ;  while,  at  the 
same  time,  the  Cross  is  regarded  as  in  some  real 
sense  necessary  for  the  self-satisfaction  of  God's 
own  nature  in  forgiving  sin ;  and  therefore  I 
shall  not,  I  trust,  be  found  to  have  missed 
wholly  the  truth  hidden  in  the  heart  of  the 
older,  sacrificial  theology. 


X  PREFACE, 

My  dealing  with  current  objections  of  popu- 
lar scepticism  would  have  been  singularly  in- 
complete wdthout  some  endeavor,  at  least,  on 
my  part  to  wrestle  with  the  acknowledged  dif- 
ficulties of  our  belief  in  a  future  life  of  rewards 
and  punishments.  My  reasonings  and  conclu- 
sions upon  these  momentous  questions  may  seem 
to  some  too  cautious  and  hesitating;  others 
whose  minds  are  darkened  under  the  shadow 
of  the  awful  possibilities  of  the  retributive 
government  of  God,  may  possibly  be  helped 
by  them  to  wait  and  trust ;  I  can  only  say  of 
them  that  I  have  gone  as  far  as  I  think  reason 
and  the  Scripture  allow  us  to  go  with  unhesi- 
tating feet,  and  I  have  stopped,  and  am  waiting 
for  more  light,  where  a  step  farther  would 
seem  to  me  to  be  a  step  beyond  the  limits  of 
revelation — a  doubtful  leap  which  orthodox 
theology  should  not  push  faith  to  take  in  the 
dark. 

To  the  discussion  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
future  life  I  have  added  a  sermon  upon  Social 
Immortality,  without  which  one  chief  element 
of  the  hope  of  immortality  would  have  been 


PREFACE.  xi 

left  untouched.  It  may,  also,  help  to  swell  the 
needed  and  growing  reaction  against  that  exag- 
gerated and  extreme  individualism  which  has 
been  at  once  the  strength  and  the  weakness  of 
Protestantism,  both  the  truth  and  the  sophism 
of  Calvinistic  philosophy. 

A  few  critical  notes  have  been  appended,  in 
order  to  indicate  more  definitely,  at  some  im- 
portant points,  the  relation  of  positions  assumed 
in  the  discourses  to  existing  questions  and  be- 
liefs. 

These  discourses,  without  further  preface,  I 
would  introduce  simply  as  one  series  of  a  pas- 
tor's working  sermons ;  they  are  not  sent  forth 
under  "  the  philosopher's  cloak,"  but  clothed  in 
the  working-dress  of  the  ordinary  ministration 
of  the  Word,  and  for  the  purpose  of  helping 
among  men  the  removal  of  some  common  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  the  coming  of  a  better 
day  of  faith. 

QuiNCY,  III.,  June,  1881. 


,^^i 


r 

V 


DISCOURSES. 


I. 


THE  CHUECHES  AND  CREEDS. 


Nevertheless,  whereto  we  have  already  attained,  let  us  walk  by 
the  same  rule,  let  us  mind  the  same  thing. — PniL.  iii.  16. 


We  are  told  that  the  creeds  of  the  churches 
are  obstacles  in  the  way  of  Christianity.  If 
the  doctrines  upon  which,  as  it  is  often,  but  in- 
correctly said,  the  churches  are  founded,  should 
be  removed,  men  would  flock  into  them,  and 
they  would  be  filled  to  overflowing.  But 
thouirh  in  not  a  few  churches  creeds  have  been 
taken  out  of  the  way,  the  logic  of  facts  has 
hardly  justified  the  expectations  of  those  who 
would  banish  them,  and  in  no  creedless  church 
has  Christianity  come  to  its  kingdom.  I  would 
not  form  a  generalization  from  isolated  facts. 


14  DISCOURSES. 

but  the  whole  history  of  the  church  seems  to 
show  that  the  flow  and  power  of  a  progressive 
Christianity  has  kept  within  certain  general 
limits  of  belief,  and  that,  too  far  beyond  those 
limits,  both  churches  and  individuals  lose  the 
deep,  strong  current  of  the  divine  influence  in 
human  history.  The  repeated  failures  of  at- 
tempts to  build  churches  upon  a  basis  of  pure 
individualism,  and  the  incontestable  fact  that 
Christianity  has  made  steady  progress  along  the 
lines  of  certain  common  beliefs  and  historical 
confessions,  are  reasons  suflicient,  at  least,  ,to 
prevent  us  from  dismissing  these  creeds  with 
an  impatient  gesture,  as  though  we  had  only  to 
bow  them  out  in  order  to  bow  the  world  into 
the  church. 

I  have  spent  many  delightful  hours  of  my 
life  in  the  woods,  but  I  have  never  seen  a  tree 
that  had  grown  up  through  the  storms — I  have 
never  noticed  a  single  living  twig — which  nature 
had  not  provided  with  a  covering  of  bark.  A 
creedless  church  is  like  a  barkless  tree.  The 
bark,  it  is  true,  should  grow  with  the  growth 
of  the  tree ;  but  some  bark  seems  to  be  a  neces- 
sity of  growth.     Some  creed  is  essential  to  the 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS.  \  5 

development  of  Christianity.  I  have  looked 
down  through  the  microscope  into  the  first  be- 
ginnings of  life,  and  seen  at  the  very  bottom  of 
all  existence  a  mass  of  protoplasmic  pulp ;  but 
the  cell  which  is  the  unit  of  growth,  the  unit  of 
the  forming  tissues,  is  a  nucleus  of  life  pro- 
tected by  an  envelope,  or  wall,  of  formed  mat- 
ter. This  analogy  of  natural  growth  will  hardly 
mislead  us  in  the  higher  spheres  of  mind  and 
morals.  Some  formed  matter,  some  fixed  beliefs, 
would  seem  to  be  necessities  of  the  growth  of 
religion.  Some  creed — I  am  not  speaking  just 
now  of  its  contents — is  necessary  to  the  men- 
tal growth  of  individuals.  Christianity  would 
be  singularly  incomplete  did  it  not  furnish 
materials  for  reason  to  fashion  into  systems 
of  thought ;  and  the  intellectual  completeness 
of  Christianity  has  been  to  many  profound 
intellects  one  of  the  evidences  of  its  divine 
origin. 

Some  creed,  moreover,  some  fixed  idea  of  con- 
duct, is  necessary  to  the  growth  of  character. 
We  are  not  beyond  the  wisdom  of  the  proverb, 
"As  he  thinketh  in  his  heart" — that  is,  as  a 
man  really  believes — "  so  is  he." 


l6  DISCOURSES. 

Some  creed  is  still  more  a  social  necessity, 
essential  to  the  existence  and  perpetuity  of  tlie 
new  society  which  it  is  the  distinctive  glory  of 
Christianity  to  liave  called  forth.  Jesus  came 
preaching  the  kingdom  of  God.  His  object 
from  tlie  first  was  not  simply  to  call  the  indi- 
vidual disciple  to  follow  him,  but  to  create  an 
apostolic  fellowship ;  not  merely  to  save  the  in- 
dividual soul,  but  to  save  it  for  a  society  of  the 
redeemed.  The  new,  higher  society  created  in 
this  world  by  Jesus,  affords,  by  its  existence 
and  perpetuity,  one  of  the  distinctive  and  char- 
acteristic evidences  of  his  supernatural  virtue. 
Christianity  issues,  as  no  other  religion  so  na- 
turally and  so  powerfully,  in  a  church.  But 
this  new  society  is  and  must  be  a  fellowship  in 
the  truth.  The  doctrine  of  Jesus,  therefore,  as 
it  was  received  by  the  apostles,  and  as  it  opens 
its  manifold  meanings  with  the  growth  of  Chris- 
tian thought,  is  not  only  to  be  regarded  as  an 
essential  part  of  Christianity,  but  also  as  one  of 
its  first  social  necessities. 

Most  men,  therefore,  may  agree  with  me  that 
some  creed  is  a  necessity  required  by  the  very 
nature  of  mind  and  morals,  and  indispensable 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS.  17 

to  the  upbuilding  of  a  liiglier  Cliristian  society. 
Their  objections  to  creeds,  however,  really  lie 
against  their  contents  or  their  abuses.  I  shall 
refer,  therefore,  to  several  objections  of  this 
description  against  our  present  forms  or  admin- 
istration of  Christianity.  I  would  not,  how- 
ever, take  up  these  objections  in  any  spirit  of 
controversy,  for  I  have  noticed  that  when  men 
begin  to  debate,  truth  usually  begins  to  suffer ; 
but  there  are  doubts  and  difficulties  concern- 
ing our  creeds  which  sometimes  find  expression 
in  our  popular  literature,  which  ought  to  be 
frequently  and  fairly  weighed  by  the  orthodox 
clergy,  and  which,  so  far  as  they  may  be  found 
to  spring  not  entirely  from  our  mistaking  Jesus' 
method,  but  from  some  misapprehension  of  our 
real  intentions  in  the  administration  of  Christ's 
church,  or  from  pojDular  prejudices  resting  upon 
half  truths,  we  should  spare  no  pains  to  remove 
or  correct. 

The  first  objection  which  has  recently  been 
brought  to  our  attention,  is  that  the  churches 
have  a  "tendency  to  repress  free  tliought,"  and 
that  "  no  progress  has  been  made  in  theology." 
I  ask  first  of  all,  ^vhether  statements  such  as 


1 8  DISCOURSES. 

these,  tbougli  now  frequently  alleged,  are  wholly 
in  accordance  with  the  facts?  A  tendency  is 
a  long-continued  movement,  not  always  to  be 
determined  by  the  apparent  direction  of  the  mo- 
ment. We  must  not  judge  the  sweep  of  a  moun- 
tain range  by  the  foothills ;  we  should  not  meas- 
ure the  trend  of  the  coast  by  the  little  inlet 
upon  whose  shore  we  may  dwell.  Estimated 
by  any  large  historic  judgment,  determined  by 
any  fair  observation  of  the  present  condition  of 
theological  studies,  I  venture  to  affirm  that  it  is 
not  true  that  the  churches  have  a  tendency  to 
repress  free  thought.  But  I  may  be  asked  :  Do 
you  forget  Col.  Ingersoll's  array  of  thumb- 
screws ?  No :  I  do  not  forget  them,  nor  the 
labored  and  ingenious  unfairness  of  Prof.  Dra- 
per's book  upon  the  ''  Conflict  between  Religion 
and  Science."  In  any  scientific  test,  however, 
we  should  determine  the  invariable  antecedents 
of  any  given  phenomenon,  if  we  would  discover 
its  true  cause.  If  we  study  the  history  of  intol- 
erance in  a  truly  scientific  method,  and  not  our- 
selves under  the  influence  of  some  narrowing 
prejudice,  we  shall  find  that  persecutions  and 
bigotry  have  flourished  not  only  in  the  heated 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS. 


19 


air  of  a  tropical  religious  fervor,  but  also  under 
the  arctic  chill  of  stoic  coldness ;  not  only  within 
the  pale  of  Christian  faith,  but  also  amid  the 
most  opposite  beliefs,  and  even  in  the  domain  of 
science ;  and  that,  under  all  forms,  and  every- 
where, the  invariable  antecedents,  the  ultimate 
causes,  of  intolerance  and  persecution  are  certain 
natural  limitations  of  men's  minds,  certain  evil 
propensities  of  human  nature,  and  bad  passions  of 
men's  hearts.  Some  beliefs,  it  is  true,  may  lend 
themselves  more  easily  than  others  to  the  abuse 
of  blind  prejudice,  and  as  some  of  the  brightest 
virtues  may  be  shadowed  by  the  darkest  faults, 
so  there  are  noblest  truths  which  may  be  turned 
to  the  basest  uses.  But  many  of  the  faults  of 
Christians,  and  many  evils  to  be  deplored  in  the 
churches,  I  would  cite  rather  as  evidences  of  one 
of  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  church — the 
sad  corruption  of  human  nature,  and  our  need 
of  regeneration  by  a  purer  and  divine  Spirit. 
"  What  drives  poetry  out  of  the  world  ?  "  asked 
Goethe ;  and  he  answered,  "  The  poets."  "  What 
drives  Christianity  out  of  the  world?"  it  might 
be  asked,  and  we  might  answer,  "The  Chris- 
tians."   But,  in  either  case,  a  clever  satire  should 


20  DISCOURSES. 

not   be  mistaken  for  a  sober,  historical  judg- 
ment. 

I  am  not  contented,  however,  with  a  merely 
apologetic  or  negative  answer  to  this  objection. 
I  reply  again,  that  on  the  whole  it  does  not  seem 
to  be  true  that  the  churches  have  repressed  free 
thought.  I  will  not  dwell  now  upon  their  gen- 
eral service  to  liberty.  The  lawgiver  of  old, 
coming  from  the  presence  of  the  Great  King  to 
stand  before  an  earthly  monarch,  to  bid  him  let 
a  whole  people  go  free,  was  a  true  prototype 
and  image  of  the  mission  through  the  centuries 
of  the  religion  of  the  Bible.  But  I  wish  to  give 
a  more  specific  answer  to  the  objection.  I  affirm 
that  these  very  ci'eeds  of  the  church  themselves 
were  the  results  of  progressive  thought,  and 
marked  epochs  of  free  inquiry.  They  are 
the  high- water  marks  of  great  movements  of 
thought.  That  earliest  of  the  general  creeds, 
the  Nicene,  had  three  centuries  of  thought 
behind  it.  Three  centuries  of  mental  wrestlino: 
with  the  greatest  problems  of  human  thought, 
three  centuries  of  free  discussion  by  awakened 
and  earnest  minds,  stand  behind  that  creed. 
Let  any  man  here  do  as  I  was  once  required  to 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS.  21 

do  in  the  class-room  of  a  theological  seminary, 
follow  the  course  of  the  growth  of  that  creed, 
from  mind  to  mind  and  from  acre  to  asre ;  let 
him  seek  so  to  enter  into  and  understand  the 
thought  finally  issuing  in  that  creed,  as  to  be 
able  to  pass  an  examination  upon  it ;  and,  I  ven- 
ture to  suggest,  he  will  find  tliat  he  has  sub- 
jected himself  to  no  easy  mental  discipline,  and 
he  will  feel  himself,  at  least,  debarred  hence- 
forth from  speaking  of  the  creeds  of  the  churches 
as  the  work  of  "blind  belief,"  of  "ignorant  and 
superstitious  ages." 

The  same  remark  holds  true  of  our  great 
Protestant  confessions  of  faith.  They  Avere 
born  in  liberty.  They  were  wrouglit  out  in  free 
discussion.  They  have  passed  through  the  fire. 
They  were  the  work  of  men  in  whose  souls  were 
rino-ino^  the  words  with  which  Luther  awoke 
Germany  in  his  address  to  the  "  Christian  No- 
bility," and  whose  hearts  were  vi])rating  to  his 
lofty  strain  in  his  sermon  on  "The  Freedom  of 
the  Christian  Man."  These  words  of  confession 
"  have  drawn  transcendent  meanings  up  "  from 
tlie  lives  of  martyrs.  When  I  can  take  my 
little  boy  to   the   State  capitol,  and  bid  him 


22  DISCOURSES. 

laugh  at  the  tattered  flags,  torn  to  shreds,  upon 
which  are  written  the  names  of  great  battle- 
fields of  freedom,  and  which  brave  hands  and 
loyal  hearts  once  bore  through  the  battle's  storm, 
— then,  but  not  till  then,  can  I  speak  aught  but 
words  of  reverence  and  gratitude  for  the  sym- 
bols of  faiths  so  nobly  realized  as  these  confes- 
sions which  have  come  to  us  from  out  the  great 
conflicts  of  the  ages — faiths  which  have  been 
borne  aloft  as  banners  by  heroic  spirits — creeds 
which  martyrs  have  sealed  with  blood ! 

But,  it  may  be  said,  we  admit  that  these  creeds 
were  once  wrought  out  in  liberty,  but  have  they 
not  since  become  oppressive  ?  It  is  true  that  in 
literature,  in  art,  in  civilization,  a  great  creative 
age  is  usually  followed  by  an  age  of  formalism 
and  stagnation.  Theology  is  not  exempt  from 
this  general  law  of  human  progress.  The  crea- 
tive theology  of  the  Reformation  was  succeeded 
by  a  period  of  pause  and  dogmatism.  In  the 
seventeenth  century  a  Protestant  legalism  and 
a  Protestant  traditionalism  sprang  up  and  threat- 
ened to  overgrow  "the  theology  of  the  Keforma- 
tion.  Something  of  that  tendency  to  embalm 
faith  safely  in  confessionalism  may  possibly  still 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS.  23 

linger,  and  manifest  itself  occasionally,  in  a  stiff, 
pulseless  orthodoxism ;  but  the  spirit  of  seven- 
teenth century  dogmatism  is  certainly  not  the 
spirit  of  the  living  orthodox  theology  of  to-day. 
The  late  Prof.  Bagehot,  in  his  bright  little  book 
on  "  Physics  and  Politics,"  remarks  that  one  of 
the  first  necessities  for  a  savage  tribe  becoming 
civilized,  is  to  gain  a  "legal  fibre,"  a  "crust  of 
custom."  And  the  next  necessity,  he  says,  may 
be  to  break  up  that  crust.  The  growth  of 
Christianity  may  not  be  free  from  this  general 
condition  of  progress.  But  Christianity  has 
shovrn  wonderful  power  in  breaking  up  its  own 
crusts.  They  are  breaking  up  now.  The  ice  is 
going  out.  The  primal  Christian  faiths  are  not 
departing ;  never  fear  that  they  shall  be  swept 
away !  But  every  form  that  is  in  the  way  of 
true  religious  progress,  every  crust  which  is  no 
longer  useful,  Christianity  in  the  churches  is 
preparing  to  break  up. 

Neither  is  it  true  that  at  the  present  time  our 
creeds  are  generally  used  repressively  as  con- 
ditions of  membership  in  the  church.  Has  any 
member  of  this  church,  as  a  condition  of  admis- 
sion to  its  fellowship,  ever  been  asked  to  sub- 


24  DISCOURSES. 

scribe  to  tlie  Westminster  Confession?  There 
may  be  instances  wliere  good  men  have  been 
kept  by  doctrinal  obstructions  from  the  Lord's 
table,  but  they  are  rare,  and  happily  are  becom- 
ing rarer.  Why,  two  hundred  years  ago,  in  that 
denomination  which  traces  back  its  faith  to  the 
same  general  historical  confessions  which  we 
follow,  in  the  Cambridge  platform  of  the  Con- 
gregational churches,  it  was  expressly  written 
that  in  the  examination  of  candidates  for  admis- 
sion to  the  church  "  a  rational  charity "  should 
be  exercised,  and  "the  weakest  measure  of 
faith  "  should  be  accepted. 

If  any  man  wishes  to  be  known  as  a  dis- 
ciple of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  to  confess  him, 
and  to  keep  his  commandments ;  if  he  is  willing 
to  come  humbly  and  sincerely  as  a  disciple,  and 
in  the  spirit  of  a  disciple ;  let  him  knock  and 
see  whether  any  orthodox  church,  in  any  intelli- 
gent Christian  community,  will  now  turn  him 
aside,  even  though  he  be  weak  in  the  faith, 
before  he  complains  that  our  long  creeds  are 
put  in  the  way  between,  him  and  the  Master ; 
and  then,  if  he  should  be  rejected,  I  am  not  the 
only  orthodox  clergyman  who  would  stand  with 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS.  25 

liini  outside  the  church,  if  needs  must  be,  for 
the  principle  of  Christian  liberty  ! 

Though  our  creeds  are  not  now  generally 
abused  as  conditions  of  church-membership,  we 
are  reproached,  however,  on  account  of  the  re- 
strictions placed  by  most  evangelical  bodies 
upon  their  clergy ;  it  is  said  that  they  are  "  not 
free  to  express  their  honest  convictions."  If 
that  is  the  fact,  I  have  happily  been  uncon- 
scious of  it.  I  have  not,  up  to  the  present 
hour,  found  my  liberty  to  think  under  the  law 
of  truth — and  that  is  the  only  freedom  an 
honest  mind  can  desire — abridged,  or  inter- 
fered with,  in  the  church.  It  is  true  that 
there  are  still  to  be  found  in  some  churches 
a  few  theological  Nimrods  who  are  mighty 
hunters  before  the  Lord,  and  the  beginnings 
of  whose  kingdom  is  Babel.  It  is  true,  also, 
in  any  of  our  denominations,  that  if  a  man 
brings  to  them  a  contentious  spirit,  he  will 
very  likely  receive  of  the  same  measure  which 
he  gives.  If  he  begins  his  ministry  with  the 
sword,  he  will  probably  perish  by  the  sword, 
and  he  ought  to  perish  by  the  sword  !  But  if 
any  man  does,  to-day,  honest,  constructive  work ; 


26  DISCOURSES. 

if  he  tries  to  bring  to  this  generation  the  truths 
of  God  which  it  needs,  he  may  hope  to  find 
friends  springing  up  all  around  him,  to  receive 
words  of  encouragement  from  brave  men  in  all 
the  churches,  and  to  meet  with  scholarly  criti- 
cism even  from  seats  of  conservatism.^ 

"  Yes,"  it  will  be  said,  "  but  there  stands  the 
Westminster  Confession,  gloomy  and  forbidding 
— what  will  you  say  of  that  ? "  It  does  not 
stand  as  a  prison-house  in  which  any  of  us  are 
shut  up.  The  system  of  philosoj)hy  which  was 
built  up  into  that  confession  we  are  not  com- 
pelled to  accept.  But,  if  you  admit  that  its 
language  is  moss-grown,  and  its  philosophy  an- 
tiquated, why  do  you  not  at  once  remove  or 
revise  it?  I  mii2:ht  answer  with  truthfulness 
that  a  historical  confession,  historically  inter- 
preted, may  possibly  afford  larger  liberty  than 
could  be  enjoyed  under  a  modern  confession 
legally  interpreted.  But  more  than  this  needs 
to  be  said.  Our  "  Confession  of  Faith  "  is  under 
revision  at  the  present  time.  It  is  under  revi- 
sion in  every  intelligent  sermon  in  every  thought- 
ful Presbyterian  pulpit.  It  is  under  revision 
in  every  live  Presbyterian  seminary,  and  in  every 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS. 


27 


good  Presbyterian  paper.  Moreover,  within  tlie 
memory  of  this  generation,  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession has  been  factually  revised — revised  in 
fact,  if  not  in  form.  ■  Thanks  to  the  fathers, 
many  of  whom  are  still  living,  such  a  revision 
took  place  in  the  admission  of  the  New  Eng- 
land, or  New  School,  theology  into  full  recogni- 
tion in  the  reunited  Presl)yterian  church ;  and 
that  revision,  real,  if  not  formal,  is  my  warrant 
— and  it  is  the  sufficient  warrant  for  any  minis- 
ters whose  are  the  fathers,  but  whose  faces  are 
turned  toward  the  future — for  occupying  in 
good  conscience  a  Presbyterian  jxilpit. 

Still  it  may  be  asked,  why  not  ])ring  at  once 
your  ecclesiastical  standards  into  line  with  the 
more  enlightened  theology  of  tlie  church?  I 
answer  again,  creeds  are  not  to  be  made  in  a 
day.  They  are  necessai'ily  of  slow  growth. 
Many  of  us  may  think  the  old  house  needs  to 
be  rebuilt ;  some  of  its  chambers  may  be  too 
narro^v^,  some  of  the  ceilings  too  low ;  but  we 
do  not  mean  to  move  our  family  until  we  are 
sure  that  the  new  house  is  thoroughly  built  and 
seasoned.  We  are  not  so  impatient  as  to  be 
willing  to  put  green  timber  into  its  construe- 


28  DISCOURSES. 

tion.  We  prefer  to  build  of  seasoned  timber. 
Some  question  whether  this  is  a  creed-building 
age.  There  are  still  023en  questions  upon  which 
we  are  looking  for  more-  light.  There  are  re- 
sults of  modern  investigations  to  be  thoroughly 
sifted  and  tried.  Let  the  work  of  formal  revi- 
sion of  our  standards  go  on  and  be  brought  to 
completion  as  speedily  as  it  may.  Many  of  us 
will  rejoice  in  that  day,  and  are  indeed  strait- 
ened in  mind  until  that  good  work  be  accom- 
plished. But  we  are  more  anxious  to  do  the 
real  work  of  revision,  to  adjust  our  own  faiths 
happily  to  modern  conditions  of  thought,  and  to 
learn  to  preach  them  in  the  new  tongues  of 
knowledge,  than  we  are  impatient  to  record  the 
results  of  our  labors  in  the  organic  law  or  con- 
stitution of  our  church.  So  long  as  that  law  is 
not  used  oppressively ;  so  long  as  we  have  ac- 
corded to  us  the  liberty  of  Christ  in  the  church ; 
we  mil  seek  first,  as  far  as  the  truth  may  shine 
before  us  and  lead  us  on,  to  do  the  real  work  of 
revision,  and  be  content  to  leave  the  results  to 
time.  Conflicts,  indeed,  may  yet  arise  for  liberty 
within  the  church,  as  they  have  in  the  past. 
Then  the  hour  will  find  the  men.     But  conflicts 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS. 


29 


shall  not  be  precipitated  hy  any  impatience  of 
ours.  True  reform  cannot  be  Avrousclit  in  an 
hour ;  the  great  base  of  the  advancing  wave 
does  not  move  so  fast  as  the  curling  crest  which 
breaks  into  foam  upon  the  beach.  Iveformed 
creeds  come  not  in  a  moment,  but  they  are 
always  only  questions  of  time.  The  best 
thought  in  all  Christian  denominations  is  at 
work  simplifying,  elevating,  reforming  our  the- 
ology ;  lifting  the  whole  body  of  it  up  into  a 
purer  ethical  light ;  and  we  can  wait  in  hope ; 
we  shall  have  revised  confessions  of  our  faith, 
if  not  to-day,  perhaps  to-morrow. 

This  whole  objection,  therefore,  that  our 
churches  and  our  creeds  stand  in  the  way  of 
free  Christian  thought — thought  loyal  to  Chris- 
tian truth — seems  to  be  at  the  present  time,  to 
a  very  large  extent  at  least,  an  anachronism — 
an  objection  which,  as  somewhat  out  of  date 
and  really  behind  the  times,  may  be  deemed 
outlawed  in  any  court  of  large,  reasonable 
judgment  of  present  facts  and  tendencies. 

It  has  been  urged,  however,  that  theology 
has  made  no  progress.  Here,  also,  I  would  join 
issue  upon  the  facts,  and  reply  that  theology 


30  DISCOURSES. 

has  made  great  and  gratifying  progress ;  and  I 
will  give  the  following  specifications  that  my 
assertion  may  not  be  left  indefinite :  (1.)  The- 
ology has  made  progress  in  its  methods.  There 
are  theologians  who  have  been  quick  to  avail 
themselves  of  improved  scientific  and  historical 
methods  of  inquiry.  It  costs  more  now,  more 
time  and  more  study,  than  it  did  formerly  to 
obtain  a  good  theological  education.  One  must 
receive  a  broader  and  more  varied  training  to 
be  held  now  in  any  repute  among  theologians. 
(2.)  Theology  has  made  progress  in  its  language. 
The  natural  language  for  the  expression  of  spir- 
itual truths  has  been  greatly  enhanced  by  our 
sciences.  Nature  was  never  so  rich  a  parable 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Any  one  familiar 
with  our  best  current  theological  literature  is 
sensible  of  this  freshness  and  new  power  of  ex- 
pression which  spiritual  thought  is  receiving 
from  natural  science.  (3.)  Theology  has  made 
progress  along  the  lines  of  certain  great  doc- 
trines, among  which  I  will  sj)ecify  these:  our 
idea  of  God,  and  the  relation  of  the  natm'al  to 
the  supernatural ;  our  conception  of  the  Person 
and  the  work  of  Christ,  and  our  view  of  the 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS. 


31 


future  life.     These   particulars  will  form  the 
subject  of  subsequent  discourses. 

I  pass  now  to  a  second  general  objection  to 
our  creeds  recently  urged  among  us,  one  often 
felt,  too,  by  believers  as  well  as  by  unbelievers. 
Difficulty  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  Christian 
doctrines,  as  commonly  received,  transcend  expe- 
rience and  contain  mysteries.  "  Nothing  which 
is  revealed,"  it  is  popularly  urged,  "  can  be  mys- 
terious." "What  ?  A  revelation  cannot  be  mys- 
terious !  But  the  veiy  day  is  a  mystery  of  light 
which,  with  all  our  science,  we  cannot  under- 
stand. Can  there  be  no  partial  revelations,  no 
progressive  revelation?  Are  there  not  realities 
coming  for  a  moment  within  the  dim  horizons  of 
our  consciousness — realities  more  felt  than  seen  ? 
"  Nothing  which  is  revealed  can  be  mysterious !  " 
One  needs  only  to  dwell  amid  the  daily  revela- 
tions of  a  Christian  home  to  know  that  there 
are  verities  of  affection  believed  in  with  all  the 
heart,  love  which 

"  My  soul  can  reach,  when  feeling  out  of  sight 
For  the  ends  of  Being  and  Ideal  Grace," 

the  depth  and  breadth  and  height  of  which  eter- 
nity only  can  comprehend.     "  Just  so  far  as  the 


32  DISCOURSES. 

Bible  is  a  revelation,"  we  are  assured,  "just  so 
far  it  ceases  to  be  mysterious."  That  reasoning 
wliicli  is  so  often  urged  against  the  Christian 
doctrine,  is  at  best  only  a  half  truth ;  it  needs 
to  be  completed  with  this  truth — ^just  so  far  as 
the  Bible  is  a  revelation  it  will  brino^  to  lig-ht 
mysteries  still  to  be  revealed.  This  common 
difficulty  with  revelation  on  account  of  its  mys- 
teries is  an  instance  of  the  frequent  fallacy  of 
suppressing  the  minor  premise  in  our  thinking. 
The  objection  urged  is  true  only  according  to 
the  idea  of  revelation  which  is  left  unquestioned 
and  unmentioned  in  the  reasoning ;  but  that  is 
the  very  idea  that  needs  to  be  determined.  To- 
wards the  close  of  the  last  century  a  system  of 
philosophy  was  built  upon  this  idea  that  only 
those  things  are  true  which  can  be  clearly  un- 
derstood. But  the  period  of  "Illuminism"  in 
Germany  proved  to  be  shallow  and  transient, 
and  this  philosophy  of  wisdom  without  myste- 
ries bore  very  much  the  same  relation  to  the 
real  life  of  reason  that  a  Japanese  j^icture,  witli- 
out  light  or  shade,  bears  to  a  painting  of  Rem- 
brandt. Every  science  reveals  mysteries.  You 
cannot  talk  to  your  child  about  your  own  life 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS.  33 

in  the  world  witliout  exciting  his  wonder  by 
your  words.  Every  light  brings  to  view  the 
larger  circle  of  darkness.  What  is  knowledge 
but  a  growing  wonder  ?  No  revelation,  then,  of 
a  future  life  could  be  given  to  us  which  would 
not  leave  even  more  than  it  discloses  in  shadow 
and  mystery.  We  should  remember  that  per- 
plexities which  we  often  feel  with  regard  to  the 
future  life — the  burden  of  questions  which  we 
cannot  lift — are  occasioned  by  the  very  fact 
that  we  do  have  some  faith  in  immortality,  and 
that  Christianity  has  opened  to  us  some  revela- 
tion of  the  hereafter. 

Having  thus  pointed  out  the  evident  fallacy 
in  this  popular  objection  against  the  doctrines  of 
faith  because  they  contain  mysteries,  I  should 
do  work  very  unsatisfactory  to  myself,  at  least, 
if  I  did  not  hasten  to  point  out  the  truth,  also, 
which  is  in  it.  For  there  is  a  truth  underlying 
this  reasoning  of  doubt.  A  revelation  which 
contains  mysteries,  and  in  many  respects  tran- 
scends experience,  must  have,  at  least,  some 
points  of  contact  with  human  reason,  and  in 
part  it  will  verify  and  confirm  itself  in  human 
experience.     This  is  precisely  what  the  religion 


34  DISCOURSES. 

of  the  Bible  does.  It  finds  us  in  our  truest 
liunian  experiences.  If  I  am  reading  a  book  of 
travels  and  find  the  descriptions  trustworthy  of 
places  where  I  have  been,  and  of  scenes  witli 
which  I  am  familiar,  I  may  give  credence  to  the 
writer  when  he  describes  countries  which  I  have 
never  visited,  or  narrates  events  unlike  any  which 
I  may  have  witnessed.  This  is  Jesus'  own  argu- 
ment for  his  authority  in  declaring  truths  which 
transcend  our  little  experience :  "  If  I  have  told 
you  earthly  things  and  ye  believe  not,  how  shall 
ye  believe  if  I  tell  you  of  heavenly  things?" 
Because  we  can  and  have  verified  revelation  in 
those  teachings  in  which  it  does  submit  itself  to 
reason,  conscience,  and  the  proof  of  experience, 
we  believe  it,  also,  in  those  heavenly  teachings 
which  transcend  our  understandings,  and  of 
w^hich  Jesus  has  many  things  to  say,  but  not 
now. 

Those  who  object  to  the  churches  on  account 
of  their  creeds  remind  us  sometimes,  and  with 
reason,  that  we  should  prefer  above  all  things, 
the  "  spiritual  teachings"  of  Jesus.  But  let  us 
take  care  not  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  the 
meaning  of  words.     The  word  spiritual  is  rich 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS.  35 

and  comprehensive.  It  implies  that  we  are 
spirits;  that  there  is  a  side  of  human  nature 
turned  toward  the  unseen;  that  the  soul,  itself 
an  unseen  presence,  has  some  relation  to  the  In- 
visible ;  that  there  is  a  Father  of  spirits.  The 
spiritual  teachings  of  Jesus  comprise  more  than 
our  mere  human  duties  or  moral  conduct ;  they 
involve  our  religious  position  and  bearing,  our 
obligations  to  God,  our  relations,  right  or  wrong, 
towards  God.  But  still  more  than  this  is  com- 
prehended in  these  teachings.  Christianity  is 
not  a  mere  philosophy ;  it  is  a  spirit  of  life,  em- 
bodied in  historical  fact.  It  is  a  divine  Spirit 
living,  breathing,  among  men,  actuating  and  in- 
spiring a  chosen  people,  its  organ  and  means  of 
revelation — the  Spirit  given  at  last  without 
measure  to  the  Christ  in  whom  all  the  law  and 
the  prophets  were  fulfilled.  The  spiritual  teach- 
ings of  Jesus  involve,  therefore,  his  teaching 
concerning  the  work  of  God  in  the  history  of 
the  chosen  people,  and  concerning  his  own  Per- 
son and  life  as  a  revelation  in  the  form  of  man 
of  the  glory  of  the  Father;  in  short,  his  whole 
doctrine  of  the  kingdom  of  God  already  come, 
and  to  come,  on  earth.     These  "  spiritual  teach- 


36  DISCOURSES. 

ings"  of  Jesus  in  their  comprehensiveness  the 
churches  seek  in  their  confessions  of  faith  to 
embrace  and  to  interpret. 

We  would  not,  then,  be  understood  to  hold 
our  creeds  as  perfect  ecclesiastical  fortifications, 
or  even  as  complete  statements  of  theological 
truth.  Revelation,  like  nature,  is  larger  than 
our  largest  knowledge  of  it,  and  whenever  one 
finishes  his  system  of  thought,  and  closes  up  all 
its  definitions,  he  is  sure  to  have  left  some  truth 
out.  We  would  leave,  at  least,  on  every  side  of 
our  spiritual  heritage,  gates  open  into  the  undis- 
covered country — those  realms  of  life  and  light 
which  stretch  beyond  our  present  horizons;  but 
while  we  would  not  shut  ourselves  up  in  dog- 
matic exclusiveness, — while  we  would  keep  the 
windows  open  for  any  ray  of  light  to  stream  in, 
or  for  any  birds  of  passage  to  pour  in  upon  us 
their  songs  from  the  skies, — we  rejoice  that  we 
are  not  left  by  the  God  of  the  Bible  without 
shelter  and  houseless,  to  wander  in  orphanage  of 
spirit,  without  country  or  home.  There  are 
truths  old  and  familiar,  at  whose  friendly  hearth 
we  have  learned  to  rest  and, to  wait;  there  are 
some  faiths,  tried   and   sure,  in  which,  as  did 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS.  37 

our  fathers  before  us,  we  can  live  and  would 
die. 

But  if,  after  all  that  lias  been  said,  any  one 
should  still  ask,  why  not,  in  view  of  the  ad- 
mitted difficulties  of  doctrine  and  creed,  suffer 
us  to  live  contented  with  the  simple,  moral  pre- 
cepts of  Jesus,  I  will  answer  that  question  when 
any  man  can  tell  me  if  he  has  ever  seen  a  field 
of  wheat  growing  and  ripening  without  any  ex- 
panse of  sky  over  it  ?  The  grain  cannot  mature 
without  a  sky.  There  can  be  no  perfect  moral- 
ity without  some  chemistry  of  the  heavens  in  it. 
Every  life  needs  some  sky.  Every  man,  we 
urge,  has  a  larger  life  to  live  than  that  part  of 
it  which  is  turned  towards  this  world  or  one's 
fellow  men.  Keligion  is  morality  towards  God. 
A  man's  real  creed  is  his  working-theory  of  life. 
The  churches  seek,  by  their  doctrines,  however 
far  short  of  the  spiritual  teachings  of  Jesus  they 
may  fall,  to  present  to  men  the  largest  and  best 
working-theory  of  life.  We  would  warn  the 
young  against  partial  and  defective  working- 
theories  of  life.  We  would  preach  the  Gospel 
of  Christ  as  the  one  sufficient,  and  complete,  and 
tried,  working-theory  of  life. 


11. 

DOES    ORTHODOXY   MISUNDERSTAND    GOD? 
God  is  love. — 1st  John,  iv.  16. 

If  one  should  pursue  in  the  pulpit,  with  pains- 
taking thought,  the  line  of  reasoning  which  the 
Christian  scholarship  of  to-day  regards  as  com- 
manding the  lower  lines  of  materialism  and 
modern  scepticism,  he  would  very  probably  be 
met  mth  the  reproach  that  he  was  evading  the 
objections  which  are  popularly  urged  against 
the  Bible,  and  the  difficulties  which  are  still 
lying  unremoved  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  I 
think  that  is  true,  and  I  am  glad  that  it  is  true. 
The  best  Christian  scholai'ship  does  evade  the 
common  troubles  of  poj)ular  infidelity  as  a 
traveller  up  an  Alpine  pass  evades  the  fogs  and 
the  mists  which  lie  in  the  valleys  beneath. 
The  Christian  scliolarship  of  the  present  day 
does  escape  the  difficulties  upon  which  an  In- 


D OES  OR THODOXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD?    39 

gersoll  expects  faith  to  make  shipwreck  of  itself, 
as  the  mariner  avoids  the  shoals  and  the  break- 
ers on  the  coast,,  who  has  the  courage  to  spread 
his  sails  to  the  airs  of  heaven,  and  chooses  the 
breadth  and  freedom  of  the  ocean  for  his  heritage. 
Having  already  considered  some  objections 
which  are  popularly  raised  against  the  manner 
in  which  our  creeds  are  held  in  the  churches; 
having  urged  their  necessary  uses,  while  admit- 
ting that  a  progressive  church,  led  by  the  Spirit 
of  Christ,  must  always  keep  its  historical  con- 
fessions under  the  process  of  revision  and  adap- 
tation to  new  environments  of  thought ;  I  have 
uo\v  to  enter  upon  a  somewhat  larger  field  of 
discussion,  and  to  take  up  the  question  which 
we  ought  fairly  to  consider,  whether  the  ortho- 
d.ox»theology  of  the  present  hour  stands  in  the 
way  of  faith.  We  should  be  willing,  in  the  in- 
terest of  truth,  and  of  faith  as  well,  to  review 
at  any  time  our  own  positions,  to  search  our  own 
creeds,  to  satisfy  ourselves  whether,  in  the  con- 
tents of  our  beliefs,  there  is  anything  whicli  can 
justly  be  subjected  to  the  charge  of  being  a 
liindrance  to  spiritual  faith  among  thoughtful 
and  honest   minds.     In  such  review  and.  revi- 


40  DISCOURSES. 

sion  of  our  beliefs,  I  do  not,  however,  feel  called 
upon  to  answer  old  objections,  often  urged, 
against  the  Latin  or  Calvinistic  theology.  I 
am  to  speak  simply  for  what  I  regard  as  the 
orthodox  theology  of  to-day.  Are  its  beliefs 
oppressive  to  moral  reason,  or  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  spiritual  thought  ? 

The  particular  class  of  doubts  and  misgivings 
concerning  our  theology  which  I  would  consider 
this  evening,  may  be  fairly  summarized,  I  think, 
in  this  single  sentence :  Orthodoxy  is  charged 
with  misunderstanding  and  misrepresenting  God. 
This  is  certainly  a  most  serious  charge,  and  one 
which  orthodoxy  should  be  ready  earnestly  and 
humbly  to  weigh.  Of  all  beings  God  has  been 
most  misunderstood — misrepresented  by  many 
who  have  not  wished  to  do  his  will,  and  misun- 
derstood ofttimes  in  the  bosoms  of  his  chosen 
friends.  It  is  a  coarse,  and  yet  too  common  re- 
mark that  the  creed  of  the  churches  "  sets  up  a 
demon  in  the  place  of  God  " — a  being  who  "  con- 
forms more  nearly  to  our  idea  of  a  devil  than 
of  a  God." 

There  is  one  thino-  with  reorard  to  this  re- 
proach  so  often  cast  upon  our  theology  which  I 


D OES  OR THOD OXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD?    41 

can  say  witlioiit  any  fear  of  contention :  sliould 
any  person  seek  for  admission  into  this,  or  any 
other  evangelical  church,  and  say,  "  I  am  will- 
ing to  confess  faith  in  your  creeds — I  will  Le- 
lieve  your  doctrines — though  they  make  God 
seem  to  me  to  be  a  terrible  being,  like  a  de- 
mon ; "  our  answer  would  be  prompt  and  deci- 
sive, No !  we  will  not  accept  such,  a  confes- 
sion !  Let  God  be  true,  though  every  man  be  a 
liar !  We  do  not  want  you  so  to  believe,  so  to 
understand,  our  creeds,  as  to  make  the  church, 
to  you  a  place  of  devil-worsliip.  Rather  would 
we  have  you  come  in  as  a  little  child,  knowing 
only  that  you  have  a  heart  that  needs  God,  a 
heart  that  needs  divine  mercy  and  forgiveness, 
than  have  you  stand  here  and  confess  with  your 
lips  our  systems  of  divinity,  if  their  meaning  to 
you  should  darken  the  heavens,  or  rob  your 
own  conscience  of  its  sense  of  the  truth  and 
beauty  of  the  Lord. 

But  more  than  this  might  be  said.  It  might 
be  shown  that  tlie  whole  history  of  the  ortho- 
dox conception  of  God,  from  the  first  century 
until  now,  has  been  the  history  of  a  progressive 
idea.     The  revelation  which  began  in  the  He- 


42  DISCOURSES. 

brew  fear  of  the  Lord  God  Almiglity,  and  whicli 
was  finished  in  tlie  manifestation  of  God  in  the 
person  of  Christ — the  completed  revelation  of 
God  in  the  Bible — arose,  at  length,  upon  a 
world  full  of  false  ideas  of  deity,  into  whose  at- 
mosphere, laden  with  emanations  of  evil,  it  shone, 
burning  up  the  fogs,  sometimes,  indeed,  itself 
overclouded,  but  always  breaking  through  the 
clouds,  and  filling  the  whole  world  more  and 
more  with  the  knowledge  and  glory  of  God. 

Leaving,  however,  this  possible  historical 
justification  of  the  idea  of  God  which  has  been 
growing  in  Christian  theology,  I  wish  rather  to 
ask  whether  the  idea  of  God  now  cherished  in 
the  representative  minds  of  representative 
churches,  is  justly  liable  to  this  reproach  of 
morally  misunderstanding  God.  On  the  con- 
trary it  seems  to  me  that  the  representative 
evangelical  theology  of  the  present  day  is  avail- 
ing itself  reverently,  yet  boldly,  of  the  best 
methods  of  growing  in  the  knowledge  of  God. 

It  is  not  with  men  in  general  a  question, 
must  we  worship  ?   but  whom,  and  how  ?     We  ^ 
miojht  almost  assert  that  there  are  no  confessed,'" 
educated  atheists  at  the  present  day.     For  sci- 


DOES  ORTHODOXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD? 


43 


ence  does  not  say,  "There  is  no  God;"  but,  "I 
cannot  see ;  I  do  not  know."  The  great  ques- 
tion is,  can  God  be  known  ?  and  orthodoxy,  in- 
stead of  degrading  man's  being,  and  regarding 
the  moral  nature  as  a  paralytic  to  the  touch  of 
divine  influences,  affirms  that  the  spirit  which  is 
in  man  can  and  does  respond  to  the  energy,  in 
its  own  thought  and  life,  of  the  Spirit  of  God ; 
that  man  is  capable  of  some  real,  though  par- 
tial, knowledge  of  God ;  that  the  reason  and  the 
conscience  are  the  organs  of  spiritual  apprehen- 
sion through  -svhich  man  looks  up  into  the  very 
nature  of  deity.  You  will  find  the  orthodoxy 
of  to-day  asserting  in  the  schools  of  philosophy, 
as  well  as  before  the  people,  the  fact  that  man 
has  a  spiritual  birthright,  that  in  every  beat  of 
his  heart,  in  every  thought  which  he  thinks,  he 
can,  and  he  does,  know  something  about  God. 

Orthodoxy,  then,  honors  the  reason  and  the 
conscience  as  the  organs  of  spiritual  knowledge. 
It  finds  a  higher  power  at  the  fountains  of  our 
moral  and  religious  consciousness;  and  all  ra- 
tional thought  is  the  outflowing,  or  develop- 
ment, of  the  divine  life  which  is  in  us,  and  of 
the  divine  truth  revealed  to  the  spirit  in  man, 


44  DISCOURSES. 

of  which  all  visible  things  are  the  metaphors 
and  expression. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Our  Christian  theology 
not  only  avails  itself  of  these  natural  means  of 
knowing  God — means  of  spiritual  apprehension 
which  have  not  been  wholly  lost  or  destroyed 
by  the  terrific,  blinding  power  of  sin;  but 
Christian  theology  remembers,  also,  with  grate- 
ful recognition,  this  great  truth  of  God,  "  He 
first  loved  us,"  and  it  would,  therefore,  accept 
the  providences  in  which  that  Love,  before  our 
thought  of  God,  has  sought  to  make  itself 
known  among  men,  and  it  would  look  up  to 
the  mysteries  of  God,  and  study  the  thoughts 
of  God  toward  us,  through  a  historic  revela- 
tion. 

But  here  I  strike  upon  one  of  the  strongest 
objections  that  has  ever  been  made  against 
Christian  theology.  I  will  not  state  it  to  you 
in  the  imperfect  and  more  easily  answered  form 
in  which  it  lies  before  me  in  a  popular  presen- 
tation of  it ;  for  I  think  there  is  a  real  difiiculty 
here  which  should  be  fairly  met,  and  I  will 
bring  it  before  you  in  the  form  in  which  it  has 
entered  into  the  history  of  modern  thought,  in 


DOES  ORTHODOXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD  ?    45 

its  strongest  and  most  formidable  presentation. 
I  sliall  read  to  you  Lessing's  famous  reason  for 
his  disbelief  in  historical  Christianity,  for  I  wish 
to  show  that  Orthodoxy  at  least  is  honest,  and 
will  keep  nothing  back ;  that  there  are  Chris- 
tian ministers  in  Christian  pulpits  who  prefer, 
when  occasion  offers,  not  to  take  advantage  of 
imperfect  popular  statements  of  objections  to 
their  faith,  but  to  deal  honestly  and  fairly  with 
those  objections  in  their  strongest  and  best 
forms. 

"If  no  historical  truth  can  be  demonstrated," 
wrote  Lessing,  "then,  also,  can  nothing  be  dem- 
onstrated through  historical  truths.  That  is, 
accidental  truths  of  history  cannot  be  the  evi- 
dence of  necessary  truths  of  reason."  That  is 
the  brightest  and  best  thing  that  rationalism 
has  ever  said.  It  presents  the  most  serious  dif- 
ficulty which  philosophic  doubt  can  raise  against 
a  simple  historical  faith  in  Christianity.  "  This," 
says  Lessing,  continuing  his  argument  that 
truths  such  as  the  received  belief  in  Christianity 
aMrms,  cannot  be  demonstrated  by  truths  which 
are  only  historically  certain,  "  This  is  the  foul, 
broad  ditch  over  which  I  cannot  come,  often 


46  DISCOURSES. 

and  earnestly  as  I  have  made  the  spring.  Can 
any  one  help  me  over?  Let  him  do  it,  I  entreat 
him;  I  adjure  him!  " 

Providence  was  already  leading  the  church 
over  that  chasm  between  historical  and  spiritual 
faith  which  Lessing  found  unbridged  by  the 
theology  of  his  day.  The  practical  answer,  as 
has  been  well  said,  which  Providence  gave  to 
rationalism  was  Moravianism  and  Methodism. 
Through  the  historical  gospel  of  the  life  and 
work  of  Jesus,  souls  became  filled  with  a  new 
sense  of  God,  and  aglow  with  the  light  of  the 
Spirit ; — the  Spirit  of  truth  and  of  power  used 
these  facts  of  the  gospel  history  as  the  chosen 
means  of  its  own  work  of  saving  souls. 

Providence  gave,  also,  as  the  philosojDhical 
answer  to  Lessing's  reluctant  rationalism,  a  pro- 
founder  and  a  purer  theology  than  Lessing 
found  in  the  orthodoxism  of  his  day — a  theology 
which  has  searched  the  depths  of  Christian  con- 
sciousness, and  which  has  found  in  Christian 
life  and  experience  the  present  and  immediate 
evidence  of  the  relio;ion  of  the  Bible.  This  re- 
vivified  theology  sees  in  Christianity  not  simply 
a  Christ-idea,  but  a  Christ-fact  in  the  world,  and 


DOES  ORTHODOXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD  ?    47 

it  finds  the  real  and  commanding  evidence  of 
that  divine  fact  in  humanity  in  its  present  and 
continuous  power,  in  its  living  energy  and  sj^ir- 
itual  efficacy,  in  the  consciousness  of  believers. 
Experience  proves  that  when  a  mind  is  brought 
into  vital  contact  with  historical  Christianity, 
with  the  facts  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  that 
mind  at  once,  and  as  though  a  new  and  divine 
energy  had  touched  it,  expands  and  rises  to 
enlarged  and  purified  conceptions  of  God. 

Thus  a  boy  in  Japan  once  found  a  leaf  of  the 
Bible — a  simple,  bare  record  of  historical  fact. 
But  it  led  him  across  the  ocean  in  search  of  the 
Christian's  God.  He  learned  our  language,  and, 
as  historical  Christian  records  were  brought  to 
his  knowledge,  just  as  any  other  book  might  have 
been  brought,  his  mind  seemed  to  pass  through 
what  was  almost  a  new  creation ;  it  rose  to  such 
conceptions  of  the  Deity  as  it  had  never  before 
imagined — the  witness  of  the  Spirit  within  con- 
firmed the  record  of  God  given  in  the  historical 
gospel ;  and  that  boy,  become  now  a  Christian 
man,  has  gone  back  to  Japan  a  missionary  of  the 
Cross  of  Christ,  and  has  lived  to  see  his  own 
parents  destroy  their  idols  under  the  influence 


48  DISCOURSES. 

of  the  same  historical  testimony  to  God  in 
Christ.  This,  I  say,  is  what  historical  Christi- 
anity has  done  thousands  of  times  in  bringing 
to  men  knowledge  of  the  true  God — that  knowl- 
edge which  is  eternal  life. 

The  vast  difference  between  a  merely  moral 
or  ideal  belief  in  God  and  that  knowledge  of 
God  which  is  given  and  assured  in  Christian 
experience  through  God  revealed  in  Christ,  may 
perhaps  be  made  visible  by  a  simple  illustra- 
tion. Suppose  a  child  to  have  lost  its  j)arents 
in  infancy,  and  to  have  been  carried  to  another 
country  and  brought  up  among  strangers  who 
never  had  known  them.  That  child  mio^ht 
gain,  as  he  grew  of  age,  a  theoretical,  but  not  a 
personal,  knowledge  of  what  it  is  to  have  a 
mother  and  father.  He  would  come  to  know 
these  first,  best  facts  of  human  experience  by  in- 
ference and  deduction,  but  from  no  real  vital 
experience  of  them,  as  the  child  cradled  in  love, 
and  growing  up  in  a  happy  Christian  home, 
knows  them  by  heart,  and  can  never  forget  them 
in  the  after  years,  wherever  he  may  wander. 
Such  is  the  difference  between  natural  and  I'e- 
vealed   religion — between  a  faith  in  God   de- 


DOES  ORTHODOXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD?    49 

pendent  upon  philosopliical  conclusions,  and  a 
real  experience  of  God  manifest  in  Christ.  Our 
Christian  faith  is  the  experience  of  the  man  who 
has  been  brought  up  from  childhood  in  the 
Father's  house.  For  God  revealed  himself  of 
old,  in'  the  childhood  of  humanity,  as  the  one 
supreme  authority  and  guide,  the  law  of  human 
history.  He  gave  commandments,  promises, 
warnings,  through  holy  men  inspired  by  the 
Holy  Ghost.  The  Word  came  and  dwelt  among 
us  in  the  form  of  man.  He  has  lived — the 
Lord  has  lived — a  divine  life  upon  this  earth, 
with  us,  and  for  us — a  life  of  God  in  our  hu- 
man history  and  through  history !  "  My  Father 
worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work."  God  has  not 
remained  beyond  the  stars,  unknown  and  at  an 
infinite  distance.  He  has  been  present  as  a 
divine  fact  and  a  divine  power  among  men, 
present  in  the  supernatural  development  of  that 
religion  whose  supreme  and  final  revelation  is  a 
sinless  life,  and  a  character  unique  and  peerless, 
through  which  is  declared  the  very  glory  of  the 
Father.  Therefore  we  say,  we  have  more  than 
a  religion  of  ideas;  ours  is  abetter  confession 
of  faith  than  that;  we  have  a  religion  of  what 
3 


50  DISCOURSES. 

God  has  done  for  us;  a  religion  of  historical 
facts,  which  are  full  of  the  glory  and  praise  of 
the  Father;  a  religion  which,  upon  the  founda- 
tion which  is  laid  deep  in  the  earthliness  and 
sinfulness  of  our  history,  rises  to  heights  of 
Christian  experience  around  which  still  shines 
the  light  of  the  love  of  God.  So  the  past  fact 
of  Christ  in  history  becomes  the  present  truth 
of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  in  human  hearts. 

Many  who  seem  ready  to  cast  loose  from  his- 
torical Christianity  would  retain  their  belief  in 
the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of 
man.  But  do  they  not  know  that  those  very 
beliefs  came  thi'ough  these  historical  channels, 
came  borne  to  earth  upon  these  historical 
facts  ?  that  what  no  pagan  philosophy  had  ever 
succeeded  in  accomplishing  was  historically 
wrought  into  the  character  of  a  chosen  people  ? 
and  that  Christianity,  the  outcome  of  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Bible,  first  bore  to  a  world  of  bend- 
ing slaves  and  woman,  degraded  and  forlorn, 
these  great  faiths,  which  are  our  Christian  heri- 
tage— the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brother- 
hood of  man  ?  ^ 

To  sum  up,  then,  the  result,  so  far,  of  my 


DOES  ORTHODOXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD?    51 

reasoning,  orthodoxy,  I  would  claim,  avails  it- 
self of  the  "best  methods  of  knowins:  God,  viz., 
conscience  and  reason,  and  historical  revelation. 
I  may  go  still  farther,  and  assert  that,  partial 
and  unworthy  as  we  must  confess  are  our  best 
thoughts  of  God,  nevertheless,  our  progressive 
orthodoxy  has  gained,  and  is  growing  in,  the 
most  purely  moral  conception  of  God  which  can 
be  found  anywhere  in  this  world. 

In  this  direction  there  has  been  great  and 
gratifying  progress  since  the  reformation.  Ke- 
member  that  the  reformers  brought,  and  it  was 
necessary  that' they  should  bring  to  their  world, 
this  truth :  that  God  is  Lord,  alone  is  King.  By 
two  revolutionary  truths — truths  which  came  to 
them  throuizh  a  historical  revelation — Luther 
and  Calvin  chano:ed  the  face  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion.  Luther  rose  up  in  the  freedom  of  the 
Christian  man  against  a  soul-enslaving  power, 
and  proclaimed  the  doctrine  of  justification  l)y 
faith.  John  Calvin  stood  over  against  that  great 
world-enslaving  power,  the  power  of  the  papacy, 
which  was  assuming  God's  throne  on  earth,  and 
proclaimed — there  is  only  one  King,  one  Lord, 
whose  government  not  only  controls  nations,  but 


52  DISCOURSES. 

whose  decree,  also,  readies  down  beneath  indi- 
vidual liberty,  and  upholds  all  things  by  its  in- 
f rustrable  power ; — and  by  that  mighty  truth  of 
divine  sovereignty  Calvin  and  the  reformers  did 
what  infidelity  has  never  done,  what  a  thousand 
IngersoUs  could  never  do,  sounded  forth  a  tri- 
umphant peal  for  the  liberty  of  the  souls  of 
men,  and  set  the  modern  nations  free.  It  is  to 
Calvinism,  more  than  to  any  other  single  power, 
that  the  modern  State  owes  its  liberty;  and, 
though  we  may  have  found  a  larger  life  and  a 
higher  thought  of  God  than  our  fathers  knew, 
there  is  a  needed  reproof  for  any  who  would 
belie  the  spiritual  parentage  of  our  laws  and 
liberties  in  the  old  and  homely  proverb,  "  It  is 
an  ill  bird  that  fouls  its  own  nest." 

Orthodoxy  has  accomplished  more  than  Cal- 
vinism began  to  do.  Progressive  orthodoxy  has 
reached  a  higher  conception  of  the  Godhead 
than  it  was  permitted  the  Calvinistic  reformers 
to  gain.  For  Calvinism,  as  it  confronted  the 
great  despotism  over  souls  with  its  sul)lime  doc- 
trine of  the  divine  sovereignty,  after  all  pre- 
sented but  a  half-truth  of  divinity  to  men,  and 
it  had  itself  much  of  the  Gospel  still  to  learn. 


DOES  ORTHODOXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD  ?    53 

Theologians,  seizing  its  leading  truth,  worked  it 
out  to  its  extreme  consequences,  and  we  should 
be  thankful  that  they  did;  for  just  as  material- 
ism, or  Haeckelism,  has  shown  that  Darwinism, 
if  carried  to  its  extreme  results,  fails  to  give  a 
com]3lete  solution  of  the  j)roblem  of  life,  so  Cal- 
vinism, logically  worked  out,  carried  to  its  ex- 
treme consequences,  shows  itself  to  be  in  need 
of  Christ,  in  need  of  the  Gosj^el  of  love,  in  need 
of  being  lifted  bodily  up  into  a  higher,  more 
ethically  Christian  conception  of  God,  our 
Father  in  heaven.  The  chief  want  of  Calvin- 
istic  confessions  of  faith  is  the  play  of  the 
light  and  hope  of  the  gospel  over  them.  Their 
divine  truths  are  left  too  much  in  the  shadow 
of  their  human  philosoj)hy.  A  system  of  theol- 
ogy may  be  firmly  constructed,  and  solid  as  a 
granitic  formation ;  but  if  it  is  to  be  true  to 
nature  and  the  Bible,  God's  sunliglit  must  not 
be  shut  out. 

The  reaction  from  Calvinistic  theology  at  first 
tended  toward  the  other  extreme.  Men  began 
to  chase  the  sunbeams  and  to  lose  firm  footinrj; 
on  everlasting  principles.  After  the  reformers, 
by  sterner  truths,  had  gained  men's  liberty,  their 


54  DISCOURSES. 

descendants  seemed  disposed  to  enthrone  a  com- 
plaisant good-nature,  or  a  distant  indifference, 
as  God;  they  remembered  that  the  Lord  is  mer- 
ciful, and  they  began  to  overlook  the  dark,  world- 
destroying  power  of  sin.  But  orthodoxy,  hav- 
ing learned  something  of  its  own  earlier  fatal- 
istic error,  but  avoiding  this  other  humanitarian 
extreme,  went  on  to  work  out  from  nature,  the 
human  heart,  and  the  Bible,  its  own  truth  of 
the  Godhead;  and  I  have  before  me  a  book 
that  has  just  come  from  the  press,  in  which  the 
greatest  living  theologian.  Prof.  Domer,  has 
gathered  up  the  ripe  fruit  of  his  theological 
studies,  and  I  find  there  such  conceptions  of  God 
in  the  completeness  of  his  attributes  and  fulness 
of  his  love,  as  make  both  mind  and  heart  rejoice 
in  the  glory  of  the  Lord.  Where  else  in  the 
whole  field  of  theological  literature  can  be 
found  nobler,  worthier,  more  thoroughly  ethical 
conceptions  of  God  than  the  orthodox  theology 
of  to-day  is  giving  through  its  living  masters  ? 
Escaping  the  limitations  both  of  Calvinism  and 
humanitarianism,  it  would  have  us  worship  God 
as  infinitely  majestic,  and  holy,  and  yet  un- 
speakably  beautiful   and   attractive.      God   is 


DOES  OR THODOXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD?    55 

love.  This  is  the  Christian  philosophy  of  God, 
working  itself  out  through  the  centuries,  freed 
from  the  corruptions  of  Paganism,  and  clearing 
itself,  also,  from  the  shadows  of  scholastic  the- 
ology. God  is  love — love  which  itself  is  a 
trinity,  the  unity  of  three  primitive  rays  divine. 
For  love,  in  the  one  ray  or  primal  color  of  it,  is 
benevolence — the  giving  of  self  for  another's 
good ;  and  love  is,  also,  symj)athy — the  putting 
self  in  place  of  another,  living  another's  life,  the 
vicariousness  of  the  cross ;  and  love  is  also  self- 
respect — the  unselfish  assertion  of  its  own 
worth,  the  preservation  of  its  own  good  in  the 
world.  Benevolence,  vicariousness,  righteous- 
ness, form  the  three-fold  nature  of  love,  which 
itself  is  a  unity  of  life.  God  is  love ;  love  which 
includes  all  his  attributes — mercy,  sympathy, 
goodness,  justice — all  that  can  enter  into  the 
nature  of  a  perfect  and  adorable  Deity,  so  that 
the  very  omnipotence  of  God  is  itself  an  attri- 
bute of  love,  and  with  the  wisdom  of  God 
serves  always  his  love.  "Love,"  insists  Prof. 
Dorner,  "is  the  power  in  God  over  his  own  om- 
nipotence." If  we  once  rise  freely  and  exult- 
ingly  to  this  thoroughly  evangelical  conception 


56  DISCOURSES. 

of  God,  we  sliall  find  that  we  are  above  and 
beyond  many  of  the  difiiculties  and  doubts 
which  often  perplex  and  imprison  f aith.^ 

Orthodoxy,  then,  takes  its  doctrines  and  the 
facts  of  nature,  and  thinks  them  out  just  so  far 
as  it  can  without  coming  in  conflict  with  its 
own  conception  of  God ;  and  when  it  finds  that 
it  is  coming  into  conflict  mth  its  own  faith  in 
God,  it  stops  short  in  its  reasonings,  and  bows 
its  head,  and  hides  its  O'^m.  questionings  in  the 
heart  of  its  assured  knowledge  of  the  Love 
whom  it  adores.  Predestination,  election,  all 
these  objectionable  doctrines,  these  "horrible 
doctrines" — what  will  orthodoxy  do  with  them  ? 
The  worst  doctrine  of  election  to-day  is  taught 
by  our  natural  science.  The  scientific  doctrine 
of  natural  selection  is  the  doctrine  of  election 
robbed  of  all  hope,  and  without  a  single  touch 
of  human  pity  in  it.  I  blame  not  our  science ; 
it  simply  seeks  to  be  true  to  the  facts  of  law 
and  life ;  it  finds  even  in  nature  a  continuous 
process  of  selection  unbroken  from  the  begin- 
ning until  now;  but  while  it  holds  that  all 
things  may  possibly  work  together  for  some  far 
ofE  and  larger  good,  it  has  not  a  single  tear  of 


D  OES  OR  THOD  OXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD?    57 

pity  to  let  fall  for  the  individual  who  may  be 
crushed  beneath  life's  heavy  load.  What  does 
our  tlieology — our  "  hard  theology  " — have  to 
say?  It  will  not  turn  from  the  facts.  What- 
ever else  you  may  say  of  it,  modern  orthodoxy 
is  no  coward  !  It  has  become  used  to  the  edge 
of  the  precipice,  it  has  looked  down  into  the 
depths,  its  ear  is  haunted  with  the  sound  of  the 
cataracts  !  It  will  look  the  facts  in  the  face — 
the  fact  of  sin,  the  fact  of  divine  law,  the  fact 
of  condemnation  and  death.  But  orthodoxy 
does  also  what  no  science  can  do ;  it  takes  these 
factssand  holds  them  up  before  its  clear,  shining 
faith  that  God  is  love.  It  takes  these  facts, 
awful  though  they  are,  and  brings  them  to 
Jesus,  and  leaves  them  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross. 
Orthodoxy  sees  the  chasms,  and  the  precipices, 
and  the  wild  cataracts;  but  it  sees,  also,  shed 
abroad  over  all,  the  light  of  the  love  of  God ; 
it  would  behold  them  no  more  under  any  cloud 
of  its  own  foolish  imaginations,  or  heavy,  over- 
shadowing traditions ;  it  would  see  them  in  the 
5 sunlight  of  the  Gospel,  in  the  joy  of  its  faith  in 
the  perfect  goodness  of  the  perfect  God.  And 
so,  reserving  many  questions,  as  Erasmus  once 
3* 


58  DISCOURSES. 

said  they  should  be  reserved,  not  until  the  next 
general  council,  but  until  that  hour  when  we 
shall  stand  face  to  face  with  God,  our  theology- 
has  patience,  and  can  wait.  Having  rested  as 
a  child  upon  the  bosom  of  the  infinite  Father- 
hood of  God,  oui'  faith  is  content  if  it  can  feel 
close  to  its  own  trembling  heart  the  beatings 
of  that  heart  which  is  ever  true  and  unchaDge- 
able  in  its  goodness,  even  though  it  may  be 
darkness  and  night  round  about  it  as  it  lies 
upon  the  bosom  of  God. 

If,  however,  we  are  asked  why  should  our 
theology  trouble  itself  with  thought  about  these 
high  themes,  the  answer  is.  Christian  theology 
cannot  shirk ;  it  must  think  out  and  work  out, 
so  far  as  it  has  power,  under  its  own  pure  con- 
ception of  God,  these  ever-present  problems  of 
human  existence;  and  I  reply  again  that  the 
belief  in  God,  the  theology  which  we  may  gain 
and  hold  through  all  our  questionings,  is  of 
most  practical  moment  to  us — the  whole  direc- 
tion and  conduct  of  life  will  be  determined 
by  it.  Our  theology  is  really  the  most  practi- 
cal concern  of  human  life.  The  ancients  had 
no  true  knowledge  of  the  earth,  as  they  had 


DOES  ORTHODOXY  MISUNDERSTAND  GOD?    59 

no  just  conception  of  the  sun;  so  tliere  must 
be  some  true  idea  of  God  in  order  that  there 
may  be  any  adequate  understanding  of  man, 
his  wants,  his  range  of  capabilities,  and  his  des- 
tiny; and  civilizations  are  made  to  differ  by 
the  ideas  of  God  which  shine  over  them,  as  they 
are  clear  and  true,  or  clouded  and  corrupted. 
A  man's  theology  enters  as  an  essential  element 
into  his  daily  life.  It  does  make  a  difference 
in  the  color  of  the  life  whether,  when  we  awake 
in  the  morning  and  enter  upon  the  duties  of  the 
day,  we  believe  in  God;  whether,  as  we  go 
forth  to  our  work,  we  walk  as  seeing  Him  who 
is  invisible;  whether,  when  we  return  to  our 
homes,  we  gather  our  families  together  and 
offer  our  prayer  of  thanksgiving  and  praise  to 
our  Father  who  is  in  heaven.  It  does  make  a 
difference  in  the  complexion  and  tenor  of  the 
life  whether  we  believe  in  God  so  that  our 
hearts  are  not  troubled  or  afraid ;  and  it  does 
make  a  difference,  too,  in  the  rightness  of  a 
man's  character,  whether  he  holds  a  true  filial 
relation  to  the  person  of  God ;  for,  if  God  is 
love,  capable,  because  he  is  love,  of  entering 
into  personal  relations  with  his  creatures,  then 


6o  DISCOURSES.      . 

there  are  duties  which  we  owe  to  God — and  one 
duty  cannot  be  made  the  substitute  for  another 
duty.  Honesty  in  your  business  would  not  ex- 
cuse you  for  a  lack  of  patriotism,  nor  patriotism 
for  a  want  of  kindness  in  your  home ;  and  if 
there  be  a  God,  our  Father  and  our  Friend, 
then,  as  we  have  duties  toward  one  another,  so, 
also,  there  is  a  morality  which  we  owe  to  God. 
Christ,  then,  was  right  when  he  said,  "  Seek  ye 
first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteous- 
ness " — that  righteousness  which  is  the  sanction 
of  every  human  duty,  the  inspiration  of  every 
moral  enthusiasm,' the  security  of  true  affection, 
the  peace,  the  joy,  the  eternal  life  of  the  soul. 


III. 


FOEGIVENESS    AND    SUFFEEING. 

In  tlie  sixteentli  verse  of  the  tliircl  chapter 
of  the  Gospel  of  John  is  this  word  from  Jesus — it 
must  have  been  a  revelation  from  Jesus,  for  no 
human  mind  ever  could  have  invented  it,  no 
human  heart  ever  would  have  dreamed  of  it,  it 
could  only  have  proceeded  from  a  divinely  filled 
consciousness :  "  For  God  so  loved  the  world 
that  he  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  who- 
soever believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  everlasting  life." 

I  take  up  again  the  dialogue  which  I  am 
trying  to  follow  between  belief  and  unbelief. 

Unbelief  says.  The  Gospel,  as  generally  re- 
ceived, is  inconceivable,  and  therefore  impossible. 

Belief  answers,  It  is  a  fact,  a  divine  fact  in 
history,  and  therefore  it  is  possible. 

Unbelief  replies,  The  testimony  upon  which 
these  alleged  facts  are  based  may  be  untrust- 


62  DISCOURSES. 

worthy;  the  witnesses  may  have  been  them- 
selves deceived,  if  not  deceivers.  Small  germs 
of  fact  may  have  grown  and  blossomed  into  a 
cloud  of  beautiful  myths.  Or,  if  the  time  of 
the  formation  of  the  Gospel  narratives  seems 
too  short,  and  the  date  of  Christ's  coming  too 
late  in  history  for  this  mythical  explanation, 
there  may  have  been  artifice  and  more  or  less 
conscious  tendency  to  fabrication  on  the  part  of 
the  early  disciples. 

Belief  answers.  The  Gospels  are  as  trust- 
worthy as  any  historical  narratives.  But  we 
do  not  rely  simply  upon  direct  and  explicit  tes- 
timony to  the  facts  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ.  We  have  other  and  greater  reasons  for 
our  faith.  These  facts  are  necessary  facts.  We 
cannot  explain  the  connections  and  course  of 
human  history,  before  or  since  Christ,  unless 
we  admit  the  substantial  truth  of  the  Gospels. 
We  must  admit  these  facts,  we  must  accept 
them  in  their  integrity ;  for  otherwise  the  order 
and  continuity  of  history  are  strangely  broken. 
The  facts  of  the  Gospel  are  not  what  Lessing 
would  call  "  accidental  truths  of  history ;  "  they 
are  necessary  facts — necessary  to  an  adequate 


FORGIVENESS  AND  SUFFERING.  63 

and  thoroughly  rational  understanding  of  the 
order  and  issues  of  history.  Moreover,  belief 
proceeds  to  answer,  These  facts  are  not  dead 
facts,  they  are  living  powers.  The  life  of  Julius 
Caesar  we  receive  as  a  matter  of  historical  testi- 
mony, and  yet,  in  a  certain  sense,  it  is  a  dead 
fact  rather  than  a  living  one — a  fact  of  ancient, 
not  modern,  history;  but  these  facts  of  the  Gos- 
pel of  Jesus  Christ  are  still  living  facts — living 
historic  forces,  active  energies  in  modern  his- 
tory. These  divine  facts  came  into  the  world 
as  impulsions  from  the  Unseen ;  as  powers  of 
the  world  to  come ;  and  as  such  their  strength 
is  not  abated  with  the  years;  they  are  still 
present  and  efficacious  in  modern  society,  in  its 
truest  life  and  best  growth.  We  have,  then, 
in  the  experience  of  Christian  hearts  and  Chris- 
tian society,  under  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel, 
the  living  testimony  of  truth  to  truth — the  heart 
of  man  still  answering  to  the  revelation  of  the 
heart  of  God.  The  persistent  vitality  and  con- 
tinuous growth  of  evangelical  religion  are  facts 
for  which  we  should  have  some  adequate  ex- 
planation. Here  is  a  marvellous  fact  of  growth 
which  implies  throughout  the  energy  of  some 


64  DISCOURSES. 

hidden  life.  There  does  seem  to  be  something 
in  the  heart  of  humanity  which  responds  to  the 
presentation  of  the  Cross  of  Christ ;  the  heart 
of  man  knows  its  divineness,  and  feels  its  quick- 
ening power;  and,  as  those  flowers  which  fol- 
low the  sun  through  the  day,  follow  it  still 
though  the  heavens  may  be  overspread  with 
clouds;  so,  although  the  truth  of  the  Gospel 
may  often  be  hidden  behind  our  imperfect  in- 
terpretations of  it,  nevertheless,  the  purest  intui- 
tions, the  highest  aspirations,  the  largest  hopes 
of  humanity,  do  follow  the  glory  of  that  true 
light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world.  Here  orthodoxy  well  might 
rest  its  case ;  here,  as  matter  of  fact,  many  be- 
lievers do  rest,  contented  to  receive  the  gift  of 
forgiveness  of  sin,  and  the  love  of  God  shed 
abroad  in  their  hearts,  in  which  they  find  life's 
best  hope  and  sweetest  joy. 

But  unbelief  is  compelled  to  support  its  rea- 
soning against  the  supernatural  facts  of  the 
Gospels,  by  bringing  into  question  certain  fun- 
damental ideas,  also,  of  Christianity;  and  so 
belief,  too,  rising  from  the  facts  of  Christian 
experience  to  the  ideas  of  Christianity,  is  willing 


FORGIVENESS  AND  SUFFERING.  65 

to  meet  tlie  appeal  to  reason  and  conscience. 
To  reason  and  conscience  we  are  asked  to  go ; 
and  to  reason  and  conscience  we  will  go.  To 
this  tribunal  we  would  most  confidently  appeal ; 
but  we  would  appeal  to  reason  in  tlie  highest — • 
a  reason  informed  with  conscience,  and  full  of 
heart — a  reason  that  has  power  of  insight  into 
moral  realities,  and  intuitions  of  the  deepest 
spiritual  truths. 

The  class  of  objections  to  evangelical  Chris- 
tianity which  we  have  next,  then,  to  consider, 
relate  to  the  views  we  are  supposed  to  hold 
concerning  the  Person  and  the  work  of  Christ. 

When  Dr.  Johnson  was  travelling  one  day  in  a 
rural  district,  he  was  asked  by  a  country-woman 
how  he  could  have  defined  in  his  dictionary  a 
pastern  as  the  knee  of  a  horse.  He  replied,  "  Ig- 
norance, madame,  pure  ignorance."  I  certainly 
intend  no  discourtesy,  yet  in  justice  to  the 
churches  I  am  constrained  to  say  that  ignorance 
of  what  evangelical  teaching  really  is  seems  to 
be  the  occasion  of  not  a  few  common  objections 
to  it.  When  it  is  said,  for  example,  that  the 
church  founds  its  belief  in  the  divine  person  of 
Christ  upon  the  mii'acles  which  he  wrought,  the 


66  DISCO  [/RSES. 

statement  falls  very  far  wide  of  tlie  facts.  It  is 
the  character  of  Christ  which  is  the  supreme 
evidence  of  his  supernatural  person.  The  chief 
argument  for  the  divinity  of  Christ  is  his  hu- 
manity. Close  your  eyes  for  the  time  being  to 
all  accounts  of  the  mighty  work  of  Jesus ;  seek 
to  form  a  clear  conception  of  his  person  and 
life ;  and  that  character,  when  once  really  seen, 
will  be  its  own  evidence,  the  proof  of  Jesus' 
unique  oneness  with  the  Father.  Then  read 
again  the  accounts  of  the  miracles,  and  they 
will  seem  no  longer  miracles  when  narrated  of 
such  a  Christ ;  they  are  as  natui'al  to  him  as 
our  commonest  deeds  are  to  us ;  they  are  con- 
trary to  our  experience  of  other  men,  but  not 
contrary  to  the  world's  experience  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  divine  humanity  of  Christ  is  the 
citadel  of  evangelical  faith.  Miracles  have  still 
their  evidential  value;  they  are  the  collateral 
securities  of  faith :  but  why  question  the  col- 
laterals when  the  divine  handwriting  in  the 
character  of  Christ  remains  unimpeached  and 
unimpeachable  ? 

Leaving,  then,  with  a  single  word,  this  argu- 
ment for  belief  in  the  glorious  person  of  the 


FORGIVENESS  AND  SUFFERING.  67 

Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which  is  now  the  ultimate 
and  commanding  reason  for  faith  usually  given 
by  evangelical  believers,  I  turn  to  another  part 
of  the  oljjection  often  urged  against  evangeli- 
cal faith  in  Christ. 

What  does  the  orthodox  theology  of  to-day 
have  to  say  concerning  the  so-called  sacrificial 
theology — the  atonement  for  sin  effected,  as  the 
churches  teach,  through  the  sufferings  of  Christ? 
Can  we  be  expected  still  to  cherish  a  moral  and 
rational  belief  in  the  orthodox  idea  of  atone- 
ment ? 

I  might,  in  reply,  ask  you  to  look  with  me 
through  that  progressive  revelation  of  God,  of 
which  our  Bible  is  the  record  and  witness,  and 
to  seek,  as  we  gaze  down  that  divine  perspective 
of  covenant,  law,  and  sacrifice,  to  determine  in 
relation  to  the  chief  facts  of  the  history  of  re- 
demption the  place  of  the  cross  upon  which  the 
Messiah  died ;  or,  I  might  ask  you,  leaving  the 
circle  of  apostolic  thought,  to  enter  into  the 
history  of  this  doctrine,  and  to  follow  from  age 
to  age  its  development ;  and  thus  we  should  be 
fitted  to  understand  those  views  of  the  atone- 
ment which  are  now  prevalent  in  the  evangeli- 


68  DISCOURSES. 

cal  cliurclies.  But  I  sliall  invite  you  to  a  shorter 
yet  more  arduous  task — to  attempt  to  climb 
witli  me  straight  up  to  the  very  heights.  I  shall 
urge  you  to  endeavor  to  take  this  whole  doctrine 
of  the  work  of  Christ  up  into  the  pure  sunlight 
of  the  best  and  most  heavenly  conception  we  can 
gain  of  the  character  of  God  himself — the  height 
to  which  this  doctrine  is  uplifted  in  our  text : 
For  God  so  loved  the  world. 

The  first  two  steps  along  this  path  which  I 
would  take  are  indicated  for  me  by  the  diffi- 
culties which  are  ordinarily  found  with  the 
theology  of  the  Cross.  "  The  Bible,"  it  is  said, 
"  teaches  that  the  wages  of  sin  is  death.  But 
when  the  church  tells  us  that  Christ's  suiferinj^s 
and  death  have  substituted  eternal  life  for  this 
death,  then  our  knowledge  of  sin — of  its  conse- 
quences as  felt  in  our  own  souls,  and  as  seen  in 
others — tells  us  that  this  cannot  be  true."  It 
was  the  first  and  the  greatest  orthodox  theolo- 
gian who  once  wrote :  "  Whatsoever  a  man 
soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap;"  and  evangeli- 
cal theologians  can  hardly  be  accused  of  neg- 
lecting to  preach-,  and  with  the  utmost  earnest- 
ness, the  inevitable  consequences  of  sin,  and  the 


FORGIVENESS  AND  SUFFERING.  69 

certainty  of   tlie   laws   of   retribution.     Wliat 
then  ?     Can  tliere  be  no  forgiveness  ? 

Whoever  acce^^ts  the  simple  human  truth  in 
Jesus'  parable  of  the  prodigal  son,  has  already- 
risen  above  the  course  of  natural  retribution 
upon  which  the  objector  just  stood,  and  ap- 
proaches the  higher  ground  of  grace.  In  that 
parable  Jesus  laid  down  the  first,  broad  truth 
which  underlies  the  whole  power  and  efficacy 
of  his  own  atoning  work.  Sin,  he  would  teach 
plainly,  is  forgivable.  It  is  in  the  moral  nature 
of  God  to  forgive  sin.  The  elder  son  might 
have  answered,  in  the  language  of  some  who 
are  troubled  with  our  evangelical  preaching: 
My  knowledge  of  sin  leads  me  to  believe  that 
sin  must  be  jiunished;  I  see  no  justice  in  for- 
giving and  restoring  a  worthless  prodigal;  I 
cannot  "  comprehend  how  any  faith,  of  whatever 
nature  or  degree,  can  suspend  the  eternal  laws" 
by  wkich  the  Father  governs  the  world.  I  can- 
not see  how  any  violation  of  law  can  justly 
escape  the  inevitable  penalty — "  a  penalty  which 
no  belief  or  no  prayers  can  avert."  The  prodi- 
gal must  suffer  the  "  natural  penalty  of  his  sin ;" 
"  we  cannot  divorce  one  from  the  other."    How 


7o  DISCOURSES. 

can  the  Father,  who  governs  by  "unchangeable 
laws,"  make  a  feast  for  him  ?  Are  not  the  wages 
of  sin  death  ? 

Over  and  ao^ainst  the  elder  brother's  reason- 
ing;  over  and  against  the  theology  of  despair; 
over  and  against  this  hard  truth  of  natural  retri- 
bution, Jesus  taught  unmistakably  that  the 
Father  can  forgive ;  that  in  some  diviner  way  sin 
is  forgivable ;  that  there  is  some  possibility  for 
forgiveness  in  the  heart  of  the  nature  of  things, 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Eternal.  This  parable  does 
not  yield  the  whole  of  Jesus'  truth ;  it  is  the 
beautiful  beginning  of  the  evangelical  doctrine, 
the  end  of  which  was  the  teaching  of  Jesus  in 
that  upper  chamber,  when  he  made  known  to 
the  disciples — to  their  afterthoughts,  at  least, 
upon  his  words — how,  through  his  own  suffer- 
ings, sin  could  be  forgiven  of  God ;  how  he  was 
love's  own  atonement  for  the  sin  of  the  world. 

What,  then,  we  ask,  is  the  divine  method  of 
forgiveness?  How  would  Jesus  reconcile  for 
us  these  conflicting  truths,  that  sin  is  punish- 
able and  sin  is  forgivable?  At  this  point  let  us 
seek  at  once  to  take  this  doctrine  uj)  into  the 
light  in  which  Jesus  left  it,  the  light  of  the  love 


FORGIVENESS  AND  SUFFERING. 


n 


of  God.  I  believe  that  tlie  whole  universe  was 
first  for  the  Christ,  and  then  Christ  was  for  the 
whole  universe.  I  believe  that  the  possibility  of 
the  cross  of  Christ  is  a  possibility  in  the  moral 
nature  of  things;  and  orthodoxy  asserts  with 
grateful  exultation  that  the  Gospel  of  the  Cross 
is  in  accordance  with  our  best  knowledge  of  the 
nature  both  of. God  and  man,  and  that  doubt  or 
denial  of  it  dims  the  glory  of  Deity,  and  lowers 
the  dignity  of  human  nature.  Let  us  see  if  it 
be  not  so.  You  remember  that  in  speaking  of 
the  Christian  conception  of  God  I  remarked, 
love  is  itself  a  trinity.  I  ask  you  now,  there- 
fore, to  look  up  at  the  Cross,  and  to  behold  the 
work  of  the  Redeemer,  in  the  light  of  each  one 
of  those  primal  rays  which  form  together  the 
perfect  unity  of  the  love  of  God. 

First,  love  is  benevolence — the  giving  of 
self — self-impartation.  Shall  the  love  of  God, 
then,  pause — shall  it  stop  in  the  ascent  of  life, 
until  it  has  given  of  itself  to  the  utmost  ?  until 
it  ]ias  imparted  the  divine  nature  itself  to  the 
heart  of  humanity  ?  Love,  secondly,  is  sympa- 
thy— the  power  of  putting  ones'  self  in  the 
place  of  another ;  and  you  know  how  human 


72  DISCOURSES. 

frienclsliip  enables  one  sometimes  to  enter  into 
tlie  very  heart  of  tlie  exj)erience  of  another; 
how  human  affection  enables  the  father  or 
mother  to  take  the  sin  and  shame  of  an  erring 
child  to  their  own  bosoms,  grieving  over  it,  and 
sufEerino^  throuo-h  it,  as  thouo-h  it  were  their 
OA\'n  sin  and  their  own  shame.  This  vicarious 
power  of  living  in  the  lives  of  others  is  of  the 
very  essence  of  love — and  shall  God  be  less 
perfect  than  man?  shall  human  friendship  in 
its  power  of  sympathy  be  more  beautiful  than 
the  infinite  love  of  the  perfect  God  ?  shall  the 
mother's  heart  possess  a  power  to  enter  into 
and  feel  as  its  own  the  suffering  and  shame  of 
a  lost  child,  which  the  God  who  made  that 
mother's  heart  himself  cannot  have?  I  say, 
then,  that  to  deny  the  vicarious  power  of  love  is 
to  put  a  limit — a  limit  of  nature,  a  limit  of  our 
poor  understanding — upon  the  perfectness  of 
divine  love,  and  to  make  God  morally  less  than 
man.  When  will  we  learn,  when  will  we  have 
faith  enough  in  God's  own  image  in  humanity, 
to  dare,  reverently  and  humbly,  to  look  do^\Ti 
into  the  depths  of  the  purest  human  affections, 
and  to  find  mirrored  there  most  brightly,  mir- 


FORGIVENESS  AND  SUFFERING.  73 

rored  as  nowliere  else  reflected  from  all  the 
world  beside,  the  very  perfections  of  the  Deity  ? 
Love,  then,  in  its  sympathy,  its  vlcariousness, 
must  be  able  to  do  what  its  benevolence  would 
prompt  it  to  do  in  bearing  our  sins.  But  there 
is  a  third  element  in  love — the  element  of  right- 
eousness. This  is  love's  self-respect,  its  true  self- 
assertion,  the  affirmation  of  its  own  worth  or 
good,  eternal  faithfulness  to  itself.  This  is  the 
holiness  of  love;  and  without  this  element  of 
self-respect  human  love  would  sink  into  license 
and  lust.  Righteousness  is  the  genuineness  of 
God's  love.  How,  then — this  is  the  very  diffi- 
culty of  the  whole  question — how  can  sin  be 
forgivable  in  view  of  the  righteousness  which 
belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  love?  Look 
again,  not  at  any  of  the  lower  illustrations  of 
mediation  which  may  be  derived  from  other  all 
too  imperfect  analogies ;  but  look  at  what  love 
itself  can  do,  at  what  love  has  done.  What 
must  it  do  to  forgive  sins  against  itself  ?  If  love 
simply  should  consent  to  take  the  offender  back 
without  any  penitence  on  his  part,  or  without 
feeling  and  showing  on  its  part  any  grief  and 
suffering  for  the  wrong  with  which  it  had  been 
4 


74  DISCOURSES. 

pierced,  then  love  would  indeed  lose  its  self- 
respect,  and  be  robbed  of  its  wortli  and  purity. 
Love  can  forgive — but  it  must  suffer  in  forgiv- 
ing, and  by  its  own  pain  and  grief  for  tlie  wrong 
done,  show  its  own  recoil  from  sin,  and  condem- 
nation of  it,  even  while  it  forgives  and  delights 
in  giving  back  again  its  trust ;  and  there  can  be 
no  genuine  human  forgiveness,  no  real  reconcili- 
ation between  friends,  unless  there  be  some  suf- 
fering upon  the  part  of  both.  Oh,  my  friends, 
perhaps  this  is  the  reason  why  forgiveness  is  for 
us  so  hard  a  virtue;  we  cannot  truly  forgive 
without  some  cnicifixion  of  our  very  selves  !  We 
do  not  choose  to  cover  the  wrong  done  to  us  in 
our  own  shame  and  sorrow  for  it,  and,  condemn- 
ing it  by  our  own  suffering  for  its  sinfulness,  to 
be  willing  and  able,  with  a  true  heart,  to  forgive 
our  brother;  we  too  often  would  rather  see  the 
wrong  condemned  through  his  suffering  the  full 
consequence  of  his  offence,  and  not  by  any 
sufferiuor  of  our  own  for  him  and  with  him. 
But  God  in  his  perfect  love  chooses  the  better 
way  of  forgiveness,  condemning  the  sin  of  the 
world,  while  he  forgives  it,  through  a  divine 
sorrow   for   it,    through    Gethsemane    and   the 


FORGIVENESS  AND  SUFFERING.  75 

Cross !  So,  often,  in  our  human  liomes,  the 
mother's  tears,  the  hairs  of  the  father  turning 
gray,  are  the  signs  of  the  sorrow  tlirough  whicli 
love  manifests  its  sense  of  the  ill-desert  of  sin, 
its  deep,  unalterable  abhorrence  of  wrong-doing, 
while  it  keeps  the  door  open  for  the  feet  of  the 
returning  child,  and  is  ready  at  any  hour  to 
take  its  own,  lost  and  found  again,  mourned 
over,  suffered  for,  and  forgiven,  back  to  its  pure 
home  and  happiness.  If  we  can  do  this — if  ^ve 
know  that  we  can  do  this — if  you  fathers  and 
mothers  know  that  there  is  a  way  for  human 
affection  to  forgive  without  dishonoring  itself, 
though  it  be  a  way  of  tears — cannot  God  do  it  ? 
Cannot  God  find  the  same  way  of  forgiveness  ? 
Can  God  be  less  than  our  human  hearts  ?  But 
how  can  God  suffer?  How  shall  the  infinitely 
Blessed  One  find  the  way  of  tears  ?  How  shall 
He  condemn  our  sin  and  forgive  it  by  suffering 
its  wound  and  hurt  as  thous^h  it  were  his  own  ? 
The  answer  of  revelation,  the  answer  of  history, 
is  the  Cross  of  Christ.  As  the  benevolence  of 
God's  love  finds  at  the  end  and  at  the  head  of 
the  creation  the  place  for  the  God-man;  as  it 
takes  the  whole  chain  of  created  being  up  in  its 


'je  DISCOURSES. 

last  link  and  binds  it  to  the  throne  of  the 
Eternal ;  as  through  its  vicariousness  the  divine 
love  enters  into  man's  very  life,  puts  itself  in 
the  form  of  man  in  our  very  stead,  being 
tempted  as  we  are,  making  its  own  our  experi- 
ence of  sin,  desertion,  and  death ;  so  also  the 
righteousness  of  love  is  satisfied — satisfied  once 
for  all  and  forever — in  the  infinite  sorrow  for 
sin  which  is  manifested  upon  the  Cross.  There, 
where  humanity  comes  nearest  to  the  heart  of 
God,  where  man  approaches  nearest  to  the  life 
of  God,  where  the  Deity  takes  humanity  to 
itself — -there  is  the  altar,  there  is  the  holy-place, 
there  is  the  Gethsemane  of  Spirit,  where  sin  is 
sufEered  for  with  an  infinite  and  an  efficacious 
suffering. 

The  answer  of  orthodoxy,  then,  is  complete. 
It  is  an  answer  resting  first  of  all  upon  divine 
facts  in  history,  and  confirmed  by  the  gracious 
experience  of  Christian  life.  It  is  an  answer 
which  is  then  seen  to  be  in  its  ideas,  also,  most 
consonant  with  our  highest  and  best  conceptions 
of  the  possibilities  of  love,  human  and  divine. 
Through  the  sufferings  of  One  who  represents 
God's   whole   feeling;   toward    the    sin    of    the 


'O 


FORGIVENESS  AND  SUFFERING.  -jj 

world,  througli  love's  perfect  conquest  of  evil 
upon  tlie  Cross,  all  the  interests  of  the  heavenly 
home  may  be  preserved,  and  the  righteousness 
of  the  Holy  Father  be  manifested  and  main- 
tained, while  sinners,  forgiven  and  welcomed, 
may  find  free  entrance  into  every  one  of  the 
many  mansions.  Should  the  elder  brother  now 
say,  Father,  why  not  inflict  the  threatened  pen- 
alty ?  how  can  you  rejoice  over  one  who  went 
and  wasted  his  substance  ?  then  the  answer  of 
eternal  love  is,  that  sin  has  been  condemned 
already;  condemned  more  earnestly,  with  a 
deeper  condemnation,  in  the  suffering  which 
has  been  incurred,  in  the  very  willingness  to 
bear  with  it,  to  receive  in  its  own  bosom  sin's 
deadly  wound,  and  freely  to  forgive  it.  The 
Father's  sorrow  expressed  in  the  Christ,  the 
divine  feelino;  of  shame  for  sin  manifested  in 
Christ's  measureless  grief  for  it,  in  one  word, 
divine  love  vicariously  suffering  for  sin,  is  its 
sufficient  and  God-like  atonement.  And  by 
that  work  of  God  in  which  he  satisfied  himself 
in  forijcivino:  us,  we  are  lifted  out  of  tlie  lower 
courses  of  retriljiition  into  a  higher  order,  into 
the  order  of  the  moral  universe,  into  the  order 


78  DISCOURSES. 

of  moral  freedom  and  grace.  It  is  true  we  are 
not  delivered  from  the  purely  natural  conse- 
quences of  sin ;  but  does  it  not  make  a  differ- 
ence whether,  as  we  suffer  the  inevitable  natural 
pains  of  sin,  we  suffer  them  in  the  consciousness 
that  they  are  no  longer  divine  inflictions  of 
penalty,  since  God,  for  Christ's  sake,  has  for- 
given us ;  or  whether  we  must  endure  them  as 
under  the  displeasure  of  God,  in  utter  loneliness 
and  banishment  of  spirit  ?  Would  it  not  make 
a  difference  to  your  child,  who,  in  disobedience 
to  your  instruction  has  put  his  finger  in  the  fire 
and  been  burned,  whether  it  be  left  to  suffer 
alone,  or  in  the  mother's  arms  ?  Does  it  not 
make  a  difference  with  us,  whether,  when  we 
die,  we  die  alone,  suffering  in  the  darkness  the 
penalty  of  sin,  or  whether  we  die  knowing  that 
even  in  death  the  everlasting  arms  are  beneath 
us,  and  that  close  to  our  fainting  heart  beats  the 
heart  of  the  eternal  Love  ?  Oh  !  this  is  what 
God  in  Christ  does  for  us — He  takes  us,  even 
while  we  are  under  many  of  the  natural  conse- 
quences of  sin,  up  into  the  fellowship  of  His 
Spirit ;  takes  us  out  of  the  dark  sense  of  guilt, 
and  the  fear   of  death,  up  into  the   peace  of 


FORGIVENESS  AND  SUFFERING.  79 

the  Holy  Gliost,  and   the   communion  of  the 
Father. 

I  have  been  presenting,  I  am  aware,  but  one 
aspect  of  the  atoning  work  of  Christ — that  view 
of  it  which  seems  to  me  to  be  the  highest,  most 
purely  ethical,  and  most  satisfying."*  There  are 
other  views  of  it  opened  at  different  points  in 
the  progressive  revelation  of  God  in  the  Bible 
— other  views  corresponding  to  lower  stages 
and  analogies  of  human  experience.  But  if  you 
have  climbed  to  the  height  of  this  text,  God  so 
loved  the  world ;  if  you  have  once  looked  abroad 
upon  the  revelations  of  divine  things  opening 
like  broad  and  luminous  horizons  from  the  ele- 
vation of  this  truth  of  God,  then  you  are  above 
and  beyond  most  of  the  difficulties  and  limita- 
tions which  too  often  narrow  and  confine  evan- 
gelical explanations  of  the  atonement.  And  here 
I  may  safely  leave  it  to  your  own  better  reason 
— to  the  heart  in  the  reason — if  Jesus  did  not 
know  the  very  nature  of  God  when  he  taught 
that,  notwithstanding  all  the  appointed  retribu- 
tions of  nature,  sin  is  forgivable  ?  Unless  you 
are  prepared  to  make  God  morally  less  than 
man,  you  will  gratefully  own  that  there  must 


8o  DISCOURSES. 

be  found,  as  the  Gospel  of  tlie  Cross  assures  us 
there  has  been  found,  for  infinite  love  a  way  of 
atonement — a  way  which  even  human  love  has 
often  learned  through  love's  instinct  of  sym- 
pathetic grief — a  large,  beautiful,  transfiguring 
forgiveness,  consistent  with  its  o\vn  pure  self- 
respect,  and  satisfying  every  thought  of  right- 
eousness. The  atonement  is  thus  seen  to  be  love's 
perfect  self-satisfaction  in  the  forgiveness  of  sin, 
and  reconciliation  of  the  world  to  God.^ 

And  now  I  ask,  in  all  fairness,  that  this  teach- 
ing of  the  evangelical  pulpit  shall  not  be  cari- 
catured; that  men  should  at  least  take  the 
pains  to  understand  its  true  spirit,  and  to  judge 
it  by  the  real  morality  of  forgiveness.  I  ask 
you  to  look  at  human  nature  on  its  diviner  side, 
and  not  to  be  satisfied  with  low  and  narrow 
conceptions  of  its  possibilities.  I  ask  you  to 
admit  something  of  the  capacity  of  God  for 
loving  man,  and  something  of  the  capacity  of 
man  for  the  indwellino;  of  God.  Man  was 
made  for  God,  and  God  loved  to  give  himself 
to  man — that  is  the  simple  deep  meaning  of 
Jesus'  Gospel.  Human  nature  was  not  made 
to  be  a  little,  bustling  independency  of  God; 


FORGIVENESS  AND  SUFFERING,  8 1 

})iit  to  dwell  in  God,  and  God  in  it.  I  urge 
you  to  view  these  evangelical  doctrines  not 
simply  as  historical  facts,  but  also  in  their  ideal 
completeness  and  truth ;  and,  when  they  are 
thus  viewed,  the  person  and  work  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  become  transcendently  glorious  to  the 
reason  as  he  is  unspeakably  precious  to  many 
hearts. 

Let  it  be  remembered,  finally,  that  orthodoxy 
teaches  there  can  be  and  is  but  one  limit  to  this 
redeeming  power  of  God's  love  in  Christ,  and 
that  is  the  limit  of  a  will  which  persistently  re- 
jects the  divine.  Jesus  whom  we  love  may  be, 
as  often  he  has  been,  misunderstood.  Education 
and  training,  as  well  as  the  mistakes  of  his 
friends  may  prevent  his  light  from  shining  un- 
dimmed  upon  many  who  fain  would  see  him  as 
his  glory  has  shone  full  upon  other  uplifted  and 
glowing  souls;  but  no  friend  is  more  patieut 
than  he,  or  so  willing  to  wait,  if  need  be,  through 
the  ages  for  the  world's  perfect  understanding 
of  his  work  for  it ;  and  words  spoken  against 
the  Son  of  man,  he  himself  has  told  us,  shall  be 
forgiven.  Evangelical  theology,  in  remembrance 
of  this  attitude  and  this  gracious  word  of  the 


82  DISCOURSES. 

Master,  would  not  make  salvation  dependent 
upon  intellectual  appreciation  of  its  doctrines. 
Many  a  soul  may  grow  to  be  Christ-like  even  in 
tke  dark.  Christian  life  can  spring  up  even 
around  dim  beliefs.  A  wise  orthodoxy  would 
devoutly  hope  that  upon  many  souls  there  may 
dawn  at  the  last  day  such  revelations  of  light 
and  glory  from  the  ascended  Lord,  now  hidden 
from  them,  as  shall  make  their  human  virtues 
blossom  into  angelic  beauty,  and  flood  their 
lives  with  joy.  But  orthodoxy,  obedient  to  the 
Master's  word,  teaches  that  there  is  one  sin  of 
the  utmost  danger,  against  which,  with  all 
earnestness,  it  would  warn  men  again  and 
again.  To  resist  in  aught  the  divine  influence ; 
to  grieve  the  Holy  Spirit;  not  to  be  willing  to 
follow  the  light  of  God  which  is  now  manifest ; 
not  to  be  ready  to  receive  and  to  welcome  the 
Christ  so  far  as  he  has  made  himself  known  to 
the  conscience  or  the  heart,  that  is  sin,  deep, 
dark,  and  dangerous — sin,  which,  if  it  grows  into 
the  habit,  the  determinate  purpose  of  the  life, 
may  become  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost 
which  hath  never  forgiveness. 


IV. 


mPEEFECT   THEORIES   OF   THE  FUTURE   LIFE. 

While  we  look  not  at  the  things  which  are  seen,  but  at  the  things 
which  are  not  seen  :  for  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal ;  but 
the  things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal. — 2  CoR.  iv.  18. 

Twice  during  my  summer  ramblings  I  have 
succeeded,  after  a  hard  climb,  in  gaining  the 
summit  of  Mt.  Katahdin.  I  stood  upon  a  lofty- 
ridge  of  rock,  on  the  one  side  of  which  there 
was  a  steep  descent  where  one,  had  he  slipped, 
could  hardly  have  kept  his  footing ;  and  on  the 
other  side  fell  a  sheer  precipice,  partially  en- 
circling an  abyss,  in  which  the  clouds  boiled 
and  sui'ged,  and  the  winds  moaned  through  the 
vapors  like  the  cries  of  lost  souls. 

He  who  once  succeeds  in  climbing  the  height 
of  evangelical  truth  up  to  which  in  the  last 
sermon  I  tried  to  lead  your  thoughts,  will  be 
confident  that  he  stands  upon  an  everlasting 
foundation,  exalted  though    he   be   above  the 


84  DISCOURSES. 

clouds ;  and  lie  will  be  aware,  also,  of  tlie  dan- 
ger of  losing  firm  footliold  in  the  trutli,  or  of 
falling  headlong  into  abysmal  unbelief,  if  he 
ventures  too  carelessly  and  too  far  on  either 
side.  The  Biblical  truth  of  the  nature  of  the 
Godhead,  if  we  stand  upon  it,  will  preserve 
us,  on  the  one  hand,  from  pluDging  into 
utter  scepticism,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  from 
descending  into  untenable  views  of  divinity, 
at  the  bottom  of  which  lies  the  hopeless 
jungle  of  pagan  superstitions.  So  the  evangeli- 
cal truth  of  the  divine  humanity  keeps  us,  on 
the  one  side,  from  falling  into  sheer  fatalism, 
and,  on  the  other,  from  slipping  into  theories  of 
human  nature,  which,  though  they  seem  at  first 
lofty,  nevertheless  are  sure  in  the  end  to  land 
us  in  pessimism  and  despair.  So  in  regard  to 
Christian  morality,  one  who  stands  upon  the 
exalted  doctrine  of  God's  grace  in  Christ  is  pro- 
tected at  once  from  lawlessness  and  license,  and 
from  worldliness  and  merely  prudential  virtue 
— the  epicureanism  down  which  the  descent  is 
easy  into  lowness  and  vice. 

But  at  this  point  I  meet  with  another  objec- 
tion to  evangelical  religion  which  shall  serve  as 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    85 

the  stepping-stone  to  our  present  reasoning.  It 
is  often  said  that  evangelical  theology  appeals 
unduly  to  the  hopes  and  fears  of  men,  thereby 
producing  a  morality  of  mere  policy.  Men  are 
urged  to  unite  with  the  church  in  order  that 
after  death  they  may  escape  from  hell.  Now, 
so  far  as  the  objection  made  lies  against  the 
motives  of  some  professed  Christians,  I  would 
not  care  to  interpose  a  word  to  break  its  force. 
Jesus  himself  rebuked  the  multitude  who  fol- 
lowed him  for  the  sake  of  the  loaves  and  fishes ; 
and  I  might  appeal  to  the  echoes  which  linger 
in  our  churches,  the  echoes  which  linger  around 
the  best  orthodox  pulpits,  to  prove  that  true 
evangelical  religion  makes  its  appeal  to  the 
noblest  motives,  to  whatever  is  childlike  in 
childhood,  to  whatever  is  womanly  in  woman- 
hood, to  whatever  is  manly  in  manhood. 

But,  if  it  still  be  urged  that  any  appeal  to 
men's  hopes  and  fears  is  unworthy  a  lofty 
morality,  one  curious  fact  of  modern  literature 
would  of  itself  be  enough  to  warrant  me  in 
calling  a  halt  to  this  attack  upon  the  church. 
The  fact  is,  that  this  objection  to  Christian 
motives  on  account  of  what  Herbert  Spencer 


86  DISCOURSES. 

cleverly  satirizes  as  their  other-worldliness,  and 
John  Stuart  Mill  regards  as  their  appeal  to 
mere  policy,  has  singularly  enough  been  raised 
recently  against  Chiistianity  by  the  two  lead- 
ing representatives  of  that  very  morality  which 
is  based  upon  utility,  or  inherited  experiences, 
at  least,  of  utility;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
Jonathan  Edwards,  who  used  to  make  the  very 
souls  of  men  tremble  by  his  intense  pictures  of 
the  agonies  of  the  lost,  was  the  very  theologian 
who  worked  out  a  theory  of  virtue  so  high 
and  so  disinterested  that  the  chief  apostle  of 
scientific  utilitarianism,  Mr.  Spencer,  who  can- 
not even  "define  virtue  except  in  terms  of 
happiness,"  fails  to  understand  it,  and  mis- 
states it. 

The  simple  truth  of  the  matter  is,  that  evan- 
gelical theologians  are  the  very  thinkers  who 
have  exalted  most  highly  the  idea  of  immut- 
able moral  distinctions,  and  the  love  of  virtue 
for  its  own  pure  sake.  Moreover,  fear  is  a  mo- 
tive which  is  naturally  and  necessarily  recog- 
nized in  all  government,  in  society,  and  even  in 
the  discipline  of  the  home ;  so  that  those  who 
object  to  the  use  of  these  motives  in  religion 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    87 

might  well  be  left,  as  Bishop  Butler  would  say, 
to  hold  their  dispute  with  the  constitution  and 
course  of  nature. 

The  question  really  to  be  considered  is  not, 
should  we  be  influenced  by  hope  or  fear?  but, 
for  what  may  we  hope  and  of  what  ought  we 
to  be  afraid  ?  In  order,  therefore,  to  deal  satis- 
factorily with  the  doubts  and  difficulties  of  faith 
which  are  to  be  met  with  in  this  direction,  we 
should  enter  into  a  full  discussion  of  prevalent 
orthodox  views  of  the  future  life :  What,  as 
generally  held  by  evangelical  churches  now, 
what,  as  taught  by  really  representative  minds 
at  the  present  time,  are  the  orthodox  views  of 
the  future  life  ? 

Let  me  remind  you  at  the  outset  of  this  in- 
quiry that  the  difficulties  which  surround  this 
subject,  and  which  seem  sometimes  to  rise  up 
against  the  government  of  God  himself — the 
shadows  our  earth  in  its  history  of  sin  seems  to 
cast  against  the  very  glory  of  Heaven — are  not 
the  creation  of  Christianity.  Revelation  only 
serves  to  bring  them  out ;  they  are  difficulties 
which  run  down  into  the  depths  of  the  moral 
nature  of  things ;  they  are  problems  wliich  lie 


88  DISCOURSES. 

back  in  the  mystery  of  the  creation  of  a  moral 
universe. 

Around  the  second  star  in  the  sword-handle 
of  Orion  there  is  a  remarkable  nebula,  which 
seems  to  hang  in  the  skies  like  a  bridal  veil,  its 
threads  of  white  light  woven  into  an  infinite 
tracery,  and  through  its  folds  stars  sj^ai'kle  and 
gleam;  but  this  veil  of  light  surrounds  a  spot 
in  the  sky  of  utter  darkness.  I  have  seen  sen- 
sitive girls  start  back  with  a  shudder  from  the 
telescope,  as  that  veil  of  light  flung  across  its 
field  seemed  to  bring  out,  like  a  darkness  that 
could  be  felt,  the  black  sky  within  its  folds. 
And  often  in  the  silence  of  the  night,  as  I  have 
gazed  at  that  mystery  of  light  and  darkness  in 
the  skies,  I  have  felt  that  I  could  form  some 
conception  of  what  Jesus  meant  when  he  spoke 
of  the  heavenly  glory  and  the  outer  dark- 
ness. But  the  telescope  through  which  I  looked 
did  not  create  that  darkness,  it  only  revealed 
it;  and  so  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  only 
brino-s  out  the  darkness  which  sometimes  seems 
to  be  the  deepest  and  most"  unutterable  upon 
the  very  borders  of  celestial  light  and  glory 

In  wrestling  with  this   confessedly  difficult 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    89 

and  awful  subject,  one  of  the  first  things  for  us 
to  endeavor  to  do  will  be  to  satisfy  ourselves 
whether  we  can  win  any  conception  of  the  future 
life,  particularly  upon  the  retributive  side  of  it, 
which  shall  relieve  our  perplexities,  and  enable 
us  to  bring  into  order  and  harmony  all  the 
analogies  of  experience,  as  well  as  the  teachings 
of  Scripture.  I  shall  not  weary  you  with  a 
recital  or  discussion  of  those  numerous  theories 
of  the  future  life  which  are  at  best  only  fanci- 
ful ;  what  we  have  to  do  is  first  to  project  upon 
the  future,  so  far  as  we  can,  the  lines  of  present 
experience.  I  shall  review  briefly  several  theo- 
ries which  have  been  suQ-ccested,  not  without 
reason  and  support  from  analogy,  and  which 
have  found  some  recognition  within  the  pale  of 
evangelical  Christianity. 

First,  there  is  the  tlieory  of  annihilation,  or 
conditional  immortality.  In  one  form  of  this 
theory  it  is  held  that  the  impenitent,  those  whose 
souls  become  in  this  life  thorouglily  wedded  to 
the  flesh,  perish  at  death ;  that  immortality  is 
not  the  natural  right  of  the  soul,  Ijut  that  it  is  a 
gift  of  God  to  man,  made  dependent  upon  his 
obedience  to  the  Avill  of  God,  and  conditioned 


90  DISCOURSES. 

■upon  Ms  sympathy  witli  the  character  of  God. 
Against  this  theory  it  has  often  and  well  been 
urged  that  it  rests  upon  a  literal  and  crass  in- 
terpretation of  the  Scriptures;  that  it  contra-* 
diets  a  natural  right  to  immortality  which  would 
seem  to  be  guaranteed  by  a  faithful  Creator  in 
the  very  constitution  of  our  nature ;  and  that  it 
involves  an  imperfect  and  unworthy  conception 
of  the  soul  to  which  its  Maker  has  delegated 
something  of  his  own  being,  and  in  the  very 
creation  of  which  He  has  so  far  limited  his  own 
omnipotence,  or  placed  it  beyond  his  moral 
power,  at  least,  to  destroy  it. 

I  assume  now  the  general  belief  in  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul.  Your  hearts  are  the 
witnesses  for  it;  your  memories  are  the  pro- 
phets of  it ;  Christianity  is  the  evidence  of  it, 
wrought  into  the  very  substance  of  history. 

It  is  urged,  then,  against  this  hypothesis  of 
conditional  immortality  that  it  conflicts  with 
this  natural  and  inalienable  rio-ht  of  the  soul  to 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  from 
age  to  age,  and  through  all  aeons — a  right  which ' 
would  seem  to  have  been  granted  by  the  Creator 
and  secured  in  the  very  constitution  of  the  soul. 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    91 

There  is,  however,  another  form  of  this 
theory,  which  relieves  somewhat  the  force  of 
this  argument  from  nature  against  it.  It  may 
be  held  that  the  soul  does  not  go  out  of  exist- 
ence at  once  when  the  body  dies;  but  that, 
whether  good  or  bad,  it  shall  continue  to  be 
through  other  jDeriods  of  duration  until  it  is 
fully  ripe  for  its  final  judgment;  or  that  all 
souls  must  be  supposed  to  continue,  somewhere 
and  somehow,  in  existence  until  the  last  great 
day,  when  all  j)robation  shall  be  finished ;  and 
then,  when  this  world-age  shall  be  over,  when 
the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth  shall  ap- 
pear, then  whatsoever  is  like  God,  whatsoever 
bears  the  image  of  Christ,  shall  be  presented  to 
the  joy  and  glory  of  heaven's  eternal  King ;  but 
that  whatever  is  unlike  God,  every  soul  which, 
by  a  life  of  persistent  sin,  may  have  lost  God's 
image  and  forfeited  its  native  right  to  life  and 
immortality,  shall  ])e  destroj^ed  from  God's 
presence  with  an  everlasting  destruction.® 

This  form  of  the  theory  of  annihilation  ap- 
parently relieves  some  perplexities  of  the  dark 
problem  of  the  future  of  evil ;  but,  after  all,  it 
only  pushes  the  difiiculty  farther  back.     The 


92  DISCOURSES. 

real  question  is  not,  When  Avill  probation  be 
over,  when  will  the  judgment  come?  but.  What 
is  to  be  the  final  issue  of  evil  in  the  creation  of 
a  good  God  ?  And  annihilation  by  a  fiat  of 
God,  and  as  a  last  resort  of  the  Creator  in  deal- 
ing with  sin,  would  seem  like  a  confession  of 
divine  inability  to  overcome  evil  with  good, 
rather  than  a  final  solution  of  the  problem  of 
evil  in  the  perfect  vindication  of  love. 

There  is  still  another  possible  form  of  this 
theory,  for  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  there 
might  be  found  stronger  supports  from  our 
present  experience — a  theory  of  partial  and 
gradual  annihilation.  You  have  often  noticed 
the  power  which  an  evil  life  has  to  dwarf  and 
deaden  the  personality  of  a  man.  The  process 
of  creation  was  a  process  ever  working  upward 
— up  from  the  dust  of  the  earth  to  life ;  up  from 
living  matter  to  the  human  brain,  the  very  per- 
fection of  the  material  creation ;  up  along  the 
line  of  human  history  imtil  at  the  head  of  the 
creation  stands  the  God-man  in  the  glory  of  the 
Father.  The  j)rocess  of  love  is  ever  upward— 
up  from  the  pure  child  to  the  strong  man  or 
thoughtful  woman ;  up  to  the  still  more  angelic 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    93 

grace  and  virtue  of  the  spirits  of  the  just  made 
perfect.  But  the  process  of  sin  is  ever  down- 
ward, destroying  all  that  is  manly  or  womanly, 
extinguishing  in  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  the  light 
and  glory  of  the  soul.  Our  very  words  for 
sins  are  derived  from  the  natures  of  the  lower 
animals  and  the  coarser  characteristics  of  the 
material  world.  As  the  man  enslaved  by  his 
appetites  and  passions  sinks  lower  and  lower, 
he  seems  to  lose  soul,  to  lose  the  power  of 
discriminating  between  good  and  evil,  and  the 
capacity  of  entering  into  the  enjoyments  of 
a  pure,  happy  home.  The  mark  of  the  beast 
comes  out  upon  his  very  countenance;  down 
even  beneath  the  level  of  the  brute  creation 
does  sin  seem  sometimes  to  sink  the  soul,  even 
in  this  present  world,  until — utterly  hard  and 
coarse,  a  thing  rather  than  a  man — the  drunk- 
ard, the  debauchee,  the  criminal,  meets  the  hour 
of  his  extinction.  Now,  suppose  this  course 
of  degradation,  so  painfully  and  so  repulsively 
obtruded  upon  us  in  some  lives,  to  be  carried 
on  indefinitely;  let  this  process  of  self-extinc- 
tion, of  emj)tying  the  very  personality,  of  de- 
stroying the  soul,  go  on  through  ages  of  ages 


94  DISCOURSES. 

— and  what  would  be  left  at  last?  What  but 
the  ashes  of  flames  ?  what  but  the  graves  of 
souls?  what  but  the  shades  of  immortal  minds? 
what  but  a  world  which  would  be  the  insane 
asylum  of  the  universe?  Is  that  what  Jesus 
meant  when  he  spoke  of  him  who  is  able  to 
destroy  both  soul  and  body  in  hell  ? 

While,  then,  this  theory  of  the  gradual  waste 
of  personality  and  loss  of  soul  does  seem  to 
carry  out  certain  processes  of  moral  consump- 
tion which  we  can  see  already  begun  in  this 
world,  and  while  it  is  justified  by  some  very 
significant  analogies  of  our  present  experience 
of  the  death  which  is  the  wages  of  sin,  never- 
theless it  does  not  comprehend  within  itself  all 
the  lines  of  our  experience,  and  still  less  does 
it  comj^rise  all  the  teachings  of  the  Bible.  Oj)- 
posed,  therefore,  to  this  conception,  and  sup- 
ported by  some  facts  and  moral  reasonings 
which  it  leaves  out  of  the  account,  we  find  a 
second  general  theory  with  regard  to  the  ulti- 
mate condition  of  the  impenitent — that  of  a 
final  restoration,  the  restitution  of  all  things. 
There  is  certainly  much  in  our  personal  feel- 
ings to  give  wings  to  this  thought  of  the  final 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    95 

reconciliation  of  all  things  in  Christ.  There 
are  many  sentiments  in  our  hearts  which  leap 
up  at  the  very  mention  of  this  "  eternal  hope." 
Often,  through  the  darkness  of  the  mystery 
of  evil,  do  we  not  long  to  see  shining  from 
afar  a  single  star  of  hope?  And  it  might 
be  urged,  from  the  conception  which  we  have 
gained  of  the  perfect  God,  that  He  never  could 
give  up  the  evil,  never  could  give  up  the  work 
of  redemption,  until  sin's  last  contradiction  of 
his  own  glory  should  be  turned  to  praise,  until 
at  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow, 
not  in  fear,  but  to  the  glory  of  the  Father. 
So  this  hope  of  final  reconciliation  of  all  things 
in  Christ,  dim  and  vague  though  it  be,  has  been 
cherished  w^ithin  their  sterner  creed  by  not  a 
few  Christian  hearts,  and  has  been  avowed  and 
defended  by  some  evangelical  scholars.  But 
comforting  as  this  hoj)e  may  seem  to  be,  com- 
prehensive as  it  is  of  many  analogies  and  moral 
experiences,  supported,  also,  as  it  appears  to 
be,  by  some  hints  contained  in  expressions  of 
the  apostle  Paul,  nevertlieless  it  is  surrounded 
with  difficulties;  it  fails  to  take  up  into  itself 
all  moral  facts,  and  leads  into  fresli  perplexities 


95  DISCOURSES. 

and  doubts.  There  are  lines  of  present  experi- 
ence wliicli  seem  to  mn  tlie  other  way,  and  can- 
not easily,  even  in  our  imaginations  of  the 
future,  be  bent  around  in  the  direction  of  this 
hope.  There  are  souls  now  living  which  seem 
to  grow  less  and  less  human,  more  and  more 
Satanic,  even  under  increasing  light.  There  are 
lives  which,  so  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the 
little  arc  of  them  to  be  measured  upon  this 
earth — like  a  parabola  whose  curve,  if  prolonged 
into  infinity,  would  never  return  into  itself — 
seem  to  recede  ever  farther  and  farther  from 
the  light  and  the  love  of  God.  Their  direction 
is  toward  the  outer  darkness.  Besides  this 
painfully  evident,  unmistakable  tendency  of  sin, 
we  cannot  overlook  the  argument  for  the  future 
permanence  of  moral  character  from  the  analogy 
of  the  present  hardness  of  habit.  Human  nature 
tends  to  become  fixed  in  formed  growths  and 
tenacious  habits;  the  heart  seems  to  possess 
sometimes  a  fatal  facility  of  hardening  itself 
against  the  purest  influences  even  of  the  best 
homes.  And  while  there  are  some  passages  of 
Scripture  which  seem  to  warrant  the  hope  of 
final   reconciliation,  if  they  are  interpreted  as 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    97 

literally  as  are  the  texts  usually  relied  upon  to 
prove  the  endlessness  of  punishment,  there  are 
other  passages  of  Scripture  which  it  would  be 
difficult  to  bend  into  this  theory. 

What  relief,  then,  can  I  find  from  the  diffi- 
culties under  which  the  heart  bows,  as  under  an 
incubus,  when  I  think  of  future  retribution? 
Is  there  any  clear  way  of  thought  out  from  the 
])erplexities  which  confessedly  surround  this 
sul)ject  on  every  side?  Each  theory  which  we 
have  thus  far  tried,  promises  to  the  heart  more 
than  it  can  fulfil  to  the  reason,  and  is  found  at 
last  to  lead  no  whither. 

I  turn  again  to  the  Scriptures,  but  I  cannot 
find  that  I  am  able,  even  after  every  effort,  to 
combine  all  their  teachings  and  suggestions 
naturally,  without  any  artifice  of  interpretation, 
into  any  one  clear  and  determinate  picture  of 
the  future  life  and  its  rewards  and  punishments. 
Rather  I  see  many  of  these  teachings  as  one 
might  see  the  colors  of  a  painter  on  his  palette ; 
they  are  all  true  colors,  they  all  will  be  needed; 
doubtless  they  are  complementary  colors ;  but  I 
do  not  now,  at  least,  see  them  combined  and 
harmonized  as  I  shall  hope  to  do  when  the 
s 


98  DISCOURSES. 

divine  Idealist  shall  have  finished  his  picture  of 
human  history,  and  it  shall  be  unveiled  at  last, 
in  that  day  of  revelation,  ready  for  the  judg- 
ment. I  cannot  say  that  these  Scriptural  teach- 
ings and  hints  concerning  the  future  are  contra- 
dictory ;  I  cannot  say  that  these  divergent  lines 
of  human  experience  shall  never  find  a  common 
meeting  point ;  I  can  only  say  that  I,  a  mere 
child  of  yesterday,  with  all  the  mystery  of  the 
infinite  skies  above  me,  with  this  earth  of 
sepulchres  beneath  me,  with  this  heart  crying 
out  for  the  living  God  of  love  within  me,  yet 
with  this  eye  of  reason  com23elled  to  see  the 
facts  of  sin,  and  penalty,  and  death — I  cannot 
reconcile  all  difiiculties  which  I  must  feel  and 
learn ;  I  do  not  have  the  knowledge  by  means 
of  which  these  conflicting  analogies  of  experi- 
ence may  be  brought  to  their  point  of  stable 
union,  and  all  these  teachings  of  the  Bible  be 
made  clear  and  plain. 

What,  then,  should  we  do  ?  What,  as  ortho- 
dox theologians  who  would  be  true  to  God  and 
to  his  Word,  who  would  obey  the  Scriptures 
and  hold  the  Bible  above  creed,  what  are  we 
to  think,  what  are  we  to  teach  ? 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE. 


99 


It  is  first  a  word  of  humility  whicli  tlie  ortho- 
dox theology  of  to-day  should  utter  upon  this 
subject — a  word  of  lowly-mindedness  which 
every  earnest  man  who  has  wrestled  with  this 
subject  will  first  wish  to  speak. 

I  have  thus  far  been  brino^ins:  but  a  nesrative 
to  your  consideration.  I  have  felt  it  necessary 
to  begin  by  proving  this  negative,  by  showing 
our  incapacity  at  present  to  form  any  perfect, 
comprehensive  theory  of  the  future  life  and  the 
final  issues  of  evil,  because  we  are  too  inclined 
to  demand  more  both  of  conscience  and  revela- 
tion than  it  was  ever  intended  that  they  should 
make  known  to  us  in  this  present  world-age. 
While  we  should  seek  to  be  wise  up  to  that 
which  is  written,  we  should  not  desire  to  be 
wise  beyond  that  which  is  written.  I  want  a 
creed  coverins:  the  Bible,  but  not  a  creed  over- 
lapping  the  Bible.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore^, 
that  after  having  first  satisfied  ourselves  that  in 
no  one  theory  or  conception,  heretical  or  ortlio- 
doxistical,  can  Ave  solve  the  mystery  of  evil, 
past,  present,  or  to  come,  we  need,  then,  to  turn 
back  and  examine  this  whole  doctrine  of  the 
future  life  in  the  same  ligrht  in  which  our  best 


lOO  DISCOURSES. 

Christian  scholarsliip  now  searclies  other  teach* 
ings  of  the  Scriptures ;  to  bring  to  this  part  of 
the  Bible  the  same  broad  principles  of  interpre- 
tation which  are  enabling  us  so  successfully  to 
find  our  way  above  many  popular  objections 
against  revealed  religion,  and  which  to  many 
tried  minds  have  placed  the  great  faiths  of 
Christianity  above  reproach  and  beyond  con- 
tradiction. 

The  next  thing,  therefore,  for  ns  to  do,  will 
be  to  seek  for  the  purpose  of  revelation  in  its 
partial  disclosures  and  intimations  of  the  future 
life  of  rewards  and  punishments.  We  shall 
need  to  mark  with  painstaking  care,  also,  the 
limits  of  revelation ;  and  upon  this  whole  sub- 
ject, perhaps,  more  than  upon  any  otlier,  ortho- 
doxy needs  to  avail  itself  of  what  might  be 
called  the  statute  of  limitations  in  theology. 
We  must  determine,  if  we  can,  what  parts  of 
this  doctrine  are  purposely  left  in  obscurity, 
and  what  parts  are  brought  out  into  the  clear 
light  of  revelation — for  it  is  a  happy  and  too 
rare  art  in  religious  thinking  to  be  able  to  locate 
mysteries  wisely  and  well; — and,  then,  having 
located  the  mysteries  of  retribution,  we  may  be 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    loi 

able,  as  we  read  the  Scriptures,  to  gain  for  our- 
selves some  very  practical  and  urgent  truths 
concerning  heaven  and  hell.  That  sturdy  ques- 
tioner, Mr.  Greg,  urges  very  j^ertinently  that 
the  common  theology  does  not  so  appeal  to  the 
hopes,  and  so  lay  hold  of  the  fears  of  men,  as  to 
bring  to  bear  a  direct  and  powerful  influence 
upon  the  present  conduct  of  life.  What  ortho- 
doxy now  should  seek  to  accomplish,  is  to  put 
its  doctrine  of  retribution  into  such  a  relation 
to  the  thoughts,  the  studies,  the  pursuits,  of  the 
men  of  this  generation,  that  they  shall  be  com- 
pelled to  feel  its  force,  and  to  be  swayed  in 
their  real  lives  by  its  power.  But  we  cannot 
do  this  simply  by  repeating  the  old  words,  or 
reviving  the  reasonings  of  a  former  generation. 
The  very  word  hell  has  become  all  too  inopera- 
tive and  inefficient — a  word  useful  for  men  to 
swear  by;  and  we  greatly  need,  as  orthodox 
theologians  we  should  earnestly  endeavor,  to 
bring  to  bear  upon  this  present  world,  upon  the 
passions,  the  conduct,  the  pursuits  of  this  life, 
the  power,  the  grand,  majestic  po^ver,  of  the 
world  to  come. 

If  men  were  made  to  I'ealize  the  power  of  the 


I02  DISCOURSES. 

eternal  life,  as  Jesus  and  Lis  disciples  preached 
it,  then  the  great  practical  purpose  and  intent 
of  revelation  would  be  gained.  But  you  will 
sometimes  hear  the  sentiment  expressed  and  ap- 
plauded, as  though  it  were  a  moral  truth,  "  Give 
us  one  world  at  a  time,  and  when  we  reach  the 
other  side  of  Jordan  we  will  attend  to  the  next 
world."  No  popular  sophism  could  be  more 
misleading  or  despicable.  It  is  simply  impos- 
sible for  us  to  have  one  world  at  a  time.  Go 
home  to  your  children  and  tell  them,  if  you 
please,  to  have  their  school-days  for  themselves 
alone,  without  any  reference  to  the  life  before 
them;  try,  if  you  please,  to  have  this  life  in 
isolated  sections,  childhood  in  its  place,  then 
youth,  manhood,  and  old  age,  each  for  itself; 
but  do  not  be  so  foolish,  so  stupid,  nay,  do  not 
be  so  impious,  as  to  dare  to  go  into  your  closet 
and  look  your  Maker  in  the  eye,  and  tell  Him 
you  will  take  the  present  world  and  do  -with  it 
what  you  please,  and  by  and  by  have  the  future  ! 
The  future  is  always  in  the  present,  and  what- 
soever a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap. 

But  this  sopliism  involves  more  than  a  moral 
impossibility.     My  illustration  does  not  present 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    103 

the  whole  fallacy  of  it.  It  is  also  a  natural 
as  well  as  moral  impossibility  for  us  to  have  one 
world  at  a  time ;  for,  as  matter  of  fact,  in  every 
thought  that  we  think,  in  every  breath  which 
we  draw,  in  every  beating  of  our  hearts,  we  are 
living  all  the  while  in  two  worlds ;  we  are  liv- 
ing a  two-fold  life — we  are  dwelling  amid  the 
forms  of  things  which  are  seen  and  passing,  and 
Avith  the  realities  which  are  spiritual  and 
which  cannot  pass  away.  Two  worlds  are  oura 
— this  world  of  shadows,  this  world  of  echoes, 
this  world  of  strange  and  unsubstantial  forms, 
which  often  seems  to  us  to  be  the  only  reality ; 
and  that  other,  better  world,  unseen  but  not 
unreal,  untouched  but  not  unknown,  the  world 
of  thought,  the  world  of  love,  the  world  of  the 
soul  dwelling  in  the  light  of  spiritual  truth  and 
divine  reality.  Take  this  earth  out  of  the  skies 
in  which  it  lies  ensphered — take  the  soul  out  of 
the  body — take  love  out  of  the  heart  and 
til  ought  out  of  the  brain — if  you  would  live  in 
one  world  at  a  time  !  Orthodoxy  at  least  does 
this — with  unhesitating  and  constant  voice 
evangelical  preaching  asserts  this — that  the 
future  life  is  vitally  related  to  the  present  life; 


104  DISCOURSES. 

that  the  unseen  universe  holds  within  its  larojer 
sphere  the  workl  which  is  seen ;  that  the  one 
universe  comprehends  both,  comprehends  all^ — ■ 
not  simply  the  starry  skies,  but  also  the  heavens 
in  which  God  dwells — not  merely  this  little 
earth  and  its  visible  horizons,  •  but  also  that 
world  of  power,  beauty,  truth,  and  eternal  rest- 
fulness,  in  which  this  present  life,  with  all  its 
joys  and  sorrows,  all  its  lights  and  shadows, 
lies  ensphered,  as  the  earth  is  upheld  quietly 
and  powerfully  in  the  all-encompassing  sky. 

But  while  orthodoxy  asserts,  thus,  the  im- 
mediate organic  relation  between  this  life  and 
its  future,  and  while  evangelical  preaching  is 
bui'dened,  therefore,  mth  the  thought  of  the 
unseen  and  the  eternal  as  well  as  with  the  care  for 
the  present;  a  humble  and  earnest  theology 
will  be  willing  to  wait  for  the  day  of  I'evelation 
to  make  known  the  mysteries  which  still  lie 
like  shadows  over  its  own  faith.  When  the 
voice  of  God  ceases  to  speak,  silence  becomes 
the  only  orthodoxy.  Our  evangelical  theology 
would  enter  into  the  mystery  and  darkness  of 
this  truth  in  the  spirit  of  the  little  child  who, 
when  asked,  as  the  railway  train  swept  into  a 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    105 

tunnel,  if  she  were  not  afraid,  replied,  "Afraid  ! 
No,  God  sees."  Yes,  God  sees !  through  the 
darkness,  through  the  deep  shadow  of  our 
history  of  sin  God  sees !  and  evangelical  faith, 
Avhile  it  will  not  deny  the  night-side  of  nature, 
while  it  will  not  dispute  one  single  awful  word 
of  Jesus  "concerning  the  day  of  judgment,  "will 
still  believe  in  God,  and  wait — its  heart  is  not 
troul)led,  neither  is  it  afraid.  We  remember 
that  the  Master  was  not  troul>led,  that  Jesus  was 
not  afraid  for  God,  as  he  looked  on  to  the  end  of 
the  world-ages ;  that  he  who  spake  the  strongest 
words  of  condemnation  of  sin  which  have  ever 
fallen  upon  human  ears — he  who  possessed  the 
po^\'er  of  perfect  manly  indignation,  but  who 
was,  nevertheless,  compassionate  with  a  love 
passing  the  love  of  woman — even  when  he 
was  enshrouded  in  all  the  darkness  of  our  sin, 
never  doubted  the  Father's  goodness ;  he  knew 
that  whatever  the  future  might  be,  God  would 
be  there — God  would  be  there  in  the  perfect- 
ness  of  his  beauty  and  his  love — and  where 
God  is,  there  no  wrong  can  be  done  forever ! 
Thus  Jesus  Christ,  whose  eyes,  even  while  dim 
with  tears  of  anguish  for  our  sins,  looked  far- 
5* 


lo6  DISCOURSES. 

ther  into  the  future  than  any  human  eyes  have 
ever  seen — who  even  while  gathering  around 
him  the  heavy  folds  of  darkness  of  our  sin  and 
sorrow,  for  the  joy  set  before  him  endured  the 
cross,  despising  the  shame — he,  the  one  perfect, 
the  true  revelation  of  God,  knew  that  eternity 
would  disclose  nothing  which  should  not  justify 
and  glorify  the  ways  of  God,  and  show  that 
upon  the  throne  of  the  universe  Love,  infinite, 
pure,  and  righteous,  Love  that  can  make  no 
mistakes,  is  Lord  and  King. 

In  concluding  this  preliminary  discourse  upon 
the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  future  life,  let  me 
remind  you  that  to  our  Lord  and  his  disciples 
the  hour  of  the  great  change  for  us  is  not  the 
hour  when  the  eye  grows  dim,  and  the  sound  of 
friendly  voices  becomes  far  oif  and  unreal  in 
death;  but  that  hour  when  God  comes  near, 
and  the  eyes  of  the  spiritual  understanding 
being  opened,  the  soul  sees  how  beautiful  God 
is,  and  how  hateful  sin  is ;  that  hour  when  the 
mil  of  self  is  crucified,  and  the  God-will  is 
born  in  the  resolutions  of  the  new  heart.  Oh  ! 
that  is  the  passing  from  death  unto  life,  the  great 
change  in  the  history  of  a  soul  of  which  what 


IMPERFECT  THEORIES  OF  FUTURE  LIFE.    lo/ 

we  call  life  and  death  are  in  Jesus'  language 
only  the  metaphors.  By  whatever  influences 
that  spiritual  change  may  be  brought  to  pass, 
suddenly  as  by  a  lightning-flash  of  conviction, 
or  gradually  and  beautifully  as  the  brightening 
of  the  dawn;  through  whatever  processes  of 
experience  and  grace  the  soul  may  be  led  up  to 
its  hour  before  God;  the  crisis  of  its  whole  age- 
long history  is  its  decision  between  a  life  grow- 
ing rich  unto  God,  or  starving  upon  self — its 
real  final  choice  between  the  true,  the  eternal 
life,  or  the  eternal  death  of  the  heart. 


V. 


NEGATIVE    AND    POSITIVE    ELEMENTS   IN    THE   CON- 
CEPTION   OF   THE   FUTURE   LIFE. 

Whom  we  preach,  warning  every  man,  and  teaching  every  man 
in  all  wisdom  ;  that  we  may  present  every  man  perfect  in  Christ 
Jesus.— Coii.  L  28. 

Disbelievers  in  revelation  seem  sometimes 
to  suppose  that  if  they  could  succeed  in  dethron- 
ing the  Bible  from  its  place  in  the  Christian 
church,  they  would  succeed,  also,  in  consigning 
the  belief  in  a  future  life  of  rewards  and  pun- 
ishments to  the  limbo  of  old  and  out-worn 
superstitions.  A  friend  of  Voltaire  once  wrote 
to  him :  "  I  have  succeeded  in  getting  rid  of  the 
idea  of  hell."  Voltaire  replied,  "Allow  me  to 
congratulate  you;  I  am  very  far  from  that."  A 
keen-sighted  intellect,  like  Voltaire's,  could 
hardly  stumble  into  the  delusion  into  which 
some  of  our  lecturers  against  Moses  and  the 
Bible  seem  to   fall  so  readily,  that  if   Chris- 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.      109 

tianity  could  be  destroyed,  we  should  lose  from 
the  sanctities  of  conscience  man's  natural  and 
ineradicable  belief  in  future  retribution.  Our 
faith  in  future  rewards  and  punishments  is  in- 
stinctive and  primary ;  our  doubt  is  secondary 
and  contrary  to  nature.  Only  when  we  endeavor 
to  conceive  what  the  future  life  is  like,  to  form 
some  intelligible  ideas  of  wliat  its  occupations 
and  enjoyments  may  be,  do  doubts  rise  un- 
avoidably, and  perplexities  begin  to  overgrow 
hope,  and  we  feel  as  if  the  faith  in  immortality 
were  almost  too  great  a  truth  for  tlie  human 
intellect  to  contain. 

Evidently  the  hour  has  gone  by  for  the 
child's  picture-book  of  heaven  and  hell.  Yet 
we  may  still  carry  God's  own  promise  of  heaven 
— if  no  longer  before  us  as  a  pictured  glory — at 
least,  and  possibly  to  better  purpose,  within  us, 
in  the  pure  affections  of  our  own  hearts.  And 
even  while  we  turn  from  all  outward  represen- 
tations of  the  judgment-day,  we  may  still  keep 
the  awe  of  it  in  our  own  consciences,  and  find 
the  living  prophecy  of  it  in  the  moral  separa- 
tions and  destinies  of  the  men  among  whom  we 
dwell. 


no  DISCOURSES. 

Having  already  shown  how  difficult  it  is  to 
form  any  one  conception  of  the  world  to  come 
and  its  issues,  which  shall  be  inclusive  of  all 
the  Scriptures,  and  comprehensive  of  all  moral 
truths  and  analogies,  I  have  now  to  push  the 
inquiry  a  little  farther,  and  perhaps  to  some 
more  positive  results,  in  the  direction  indicated 
toward  the  close  of  the  last  discourse.  Let  us 
seek  to  determine  the  purpose  of  revelation  in 
making  known  to  us  what  it  has  disclosed  con- 
cerning the  future,  and  in  withholding  what  it 
has  left  in  obscurity. 

Observe,  then,  these  suggestive  facts  concern- 
ing the  aim  and  method  of  revelation  in  its 
teaching  with  regard  to  these  matters.  Notice 
that  the  Scriptures  relating  to  the  future  life 
occupy  but  a  comparatively  small  part  of  the 
whole  Word  of  God.  One  might  print  upon 
fifteen  or  twenty  pages  all  important  texts 
which  throw  any  light  upon  our  future  ex- 
istence; what  we  might  expect  would  be  the 
major  part  of  revelation  is  the  minor  part  of 
our  Bible. 

Observe,  again,  even  this  partial  revelation 
was  given  little  by  little;  the  doctiine  of  im- 


NEC  A  TIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.     1 1  \ 

mortality  was  gradually  unfolded.  In  tlie  Old 
Testament,  trial  and  suffering,  and  the  disap- 
pointment of  tlie  national  hopes,  were  necessary 
in  order  that  through  the  darkness  the  star  of 
hope  might  at  length  break  forth  and  shine 
brio-ht  and  clear.  And  we  find  that  Jesus  be- 
gan  his  gospel  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  by 
putting  his  teaching  into  the  forms  of  prevalent 
Jewish  conceptions,  gradually  leading  his  dis- 
ciples out  and  up  into  higher  and  purer  ideas, 
until,  just  before  his  departure,  in  that  upper 
chamber,  he  gave  them  his  last  and  richest  word, 
his  fullest  revelation,  concerning  the  eternal  life 
which  he  promised,  when  he  prayed  the  Father 
that  "  they  all  may  be  one  as  we  are  one ; "  when 
he  made  no  visible  splendors,  or  glory  of  out- 
ward things,  the  imagery  of  his  kingdom ;  but 
when  he  made  human  friendship,  when  he  made 
perfect  and  divine  companionship,  the  prophecy 
and  assurance  to  his  disciples  of  what  the 
heavenly  life  shall  be. 

You  will  observe  further,  not  only  that  the 
Biblical  teaching  is  progressive,  but  also  that 
those  very  disciples  to  whom  the  fullest  revela- 
tions were  given  were  most  conscious  that  they 


112  DISCOURSES. 

propliesied  in  part,  and  tliat  the  lieart  of  man 
cannot  conceive  of  the  glory  which  shall  be  re- 
vealed. Revelation,  then,  even  at  its  highest 
and  its  best,  is  but  in  part.  Revelation  began 
with  a  promise  and  ended  with  a  sunset ;  l)iit 
those  disciples  ^vho  stood  at  the  close  of  this 
day  of  the  Lord,  gazing  into  the  glory  of  that 
Apocalypse,  did  not  attem23t  to  fix  in  their 
gospel  the  colors  of  that  sunset,  to  portray  in 
definite  hues  and  determinate  forms  the  glory 
which  it  transcends  the  power  of  human  imagi- 
nation to  conceive. 

It  is  very  evident,  therefore,  that  the  object 
of  revelation  in  these  partial  disclosures  of  the 
future  life,  could  not  have  been  to  gratify  hu- 
man curiosity,  or  to  answer  those  many  ques- 
tions which  our  hearts  are  always  asking. 

But  let  us  look  a  little  deeper  and  farther. 
You  will  observe  that  the  Bible,  in  all  its  teach- 
ing concerning  the  world  to  come,  carefully 
keeps  within  certain  general  limits  of  revela- 
tion. These  limits  are  in  part  limits  of  nature, 
determined  by  the  range  of  our  powers  in  their 
present  stage  of  development. 

This  necessary  natural  limitation  of  re  vela- 


NEC  A  TIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS. 


113 


tion  may  be  illustrated  by  reference  to  a  sup- 
posed process  of  formation  of  the  eye,  and  its 
increasing  power  of  vision.  It  is  imagined  l)y 
some  scientists  that  the  eye  was  at  iirst  in  some 
lower  organism  a  mere  susceptibility  to  rays  of 
light — some  spot  in  the  nerve-tissue  becomes 
capable  of  responding  to  tlie  beatings  of  the 
luminifei'ous  waves.  Now,  if  we  should  suppose 
an  intelligence  possessed  of  that  mere  germ  of 
an  eye,  such  a  being  might  rightly  conclude 
from  its  germinal  sensations  of  light  that  there 
must  be  beyond  itself  some  larger  and  wonder- 
ful sphere  of  existence.  But,  though  all  the 
colors  of  a  sunset  had  been  spread  before  it, 
that  beginning  of  an  eye  could  not  have  been 
sensitive  to  their  resplendent  hues,  and  the  rev- 
elation of  light  would  have  found  a  limit  in  the 
impei-fection  of  the  eye.  Suppose  it,  then,  to 
have  been  carried  to  a  still  higher  development, 
to  have  become  sensitive  to  marked  differences 
of  color,  but  to  be  as  yet  without  percep- 
tion of  distance,  or  depths  of  perspective,  its 
apprehension  of  the  external  world  not  yet  co- 
ordinated with  the  knowledge  to  be  gained  by 
touch  and  the  other  senses, — then  there  would 


114  DISCOURSES. 

be  still  at  that  stage  of  the  evolution  of  sight 
corresponding  limitations  of  the  revelation  of 
light  to  it.  Now,  I  say,  that  our  eyes  for  spir- 
itual things  may  be,  as  it  were,  but  eyes  in  the 
germ; — from  what  we  do  feel,  from  the  heavenly 
influences  which  do  beat  upon  our  spirits,  we 
are  warranted  in  assuming  that  there  is  a  larger 
sphere  of  being,  there  is  a  more  glorious  uni- 
verse still  to  be  revealed,  into  whose  splendors 
as  yet  we  have  no  power  to  look  and  live ;  but 
though  that  unseen  world  may  be  shining  all 
around  us,  revelation  finds  a  necessary  limit  of 
its  light  in  the  present  conditions  and  imper- 
fections of  our  powers  of  spiritual  apprehen- 
sion. 

Besides  these  natural  limitations  of  possible 
revelations,  there  are  limitations,  also,  of  moral 
purpose  and  design.  There  may  be  possible 
revelations  which  God  might  give  to  us  even 
here  and  now,  but  which  it  might  not  be  best 
for  us  to  receive.  We  have  a  sis^nificant  illus- 
tration  of  the  harm  which  might  be  done 
through  overmuch  revelation,  in  the  imaginary 
disclosures  of  modern  spiritualism;  overmuch 
revelation  might   interfere   seriously  with  the 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.      \  i  5 

natural  course  of  human  life,  with,  the  regular 
order  of  those  pursuits  and  employments  which 
are  the  appointed  discipline  of  this  life,  and  in 
which,  through  patient  continuance  in  them,  we 
are  to  work  out  oui"  powers  for  enlarged  and 
happier  spheres  of  existence ;  so  that  doubtless 
God  has  judged  for  us,  and  with  a  Avisdom  be- 
yond ours,  between  a  revelation  adapted  to  our 
])resent  education,  practical  and  useful  for  us 
now,  and  overmuch  revelation  altogether  be- 
yond our  present  moral  verification  of  it — a 
revelation  whose  brightness  might  dazzle  the 
eye;  whose  very  power  and  glory  might  cause 
the  intellect  to  reel,  and  make  the  reason  lose 
its  self-possession,  overcome  by  the  supernal 
vision.  Too  bright,  as  well  as  too  dark,  a  reve- 
lation might  defeat  the  very  objects  of  revela- 
tion. When  faith  shall  be  lost  in  sight  the  day 
of  probation  may  be  over.  Woukl  not  tlie 
perfect  vision  of  God  be  the  final  judgment  of 
character? 

Keeping  in  mind,  then,  these  natural  and 
moral  limitations  of  revelation,  let  us  now  take 
one  step  farther,  and  seek  to  understand  what 
parts  of  the  doctrine  of  the  future  arc  left  in  ol> 


Il6  DISCOURSES. 

scurity,  purposely  left,  it  may  be,  in  the  shadows 
of  revelation. 

I  shall  mention  three  elements  of  this  doc- 
trine which,  it  seems  to  me,  both  reason  and 
the  Bible  leave  in  the  shadow — and  in  the 
shadow  it  is  wisdom  for  our  hearts  to  be  will- 
ing for  the  present  to  leave  them. 

The  first  of  these  obscure  elements  of  this  doc- 
trine is  the  relation  of  our  future  life  to  space. 
Space  is  a  metaphysical  idea.  You  may  all 
imagine  that  you  know  what  space  is ;  but  the 
nature  of  space  and  its  relation  to  the  thinking 
mind  constitute  one  of  the  old,  perpetually  re- 
curring, and  unsolved  problems  of  metaphysics. 
The  Bil)le  does  not  commit  the  fatal  mistake  of 
entrusting  its  truth  of  immortality  to  any  human 
imagination  of  the  relation  of  the  future  life  to 
space.  Suppose  Jesus  had  attempted  to  make 
the  Jews  of  his  day  understand  where  heaven 
is — to  teach  his  disciples  the  particular  direc- 
tion and  position  of  the  place  which  he  was  to 
prepare  for  them.  They  possessed  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  universe  too  limited  and  beggarly 
to  render  it  possible  for  them  to  have  gained  a 
conception  of  where  heaven  may  be  which  our 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS,      n; 

larger  science  miglit  not  now  langli  to  scorn ; 
and  Jesus  did  not  try  to  instruct  tlieni  beyond 
their  age  and  capacity,  but  was  content  to  tell 
them,  "  I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  you, 
but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now,"  "Thou  shalt 
know,  hereafter."  Or,  suppose  that  inspiration 
had  given  to  Moses  and  the  prophets  some  such 
view  of  the  future  life  in  its  relation  to  the 
present  system  of  things  as  the  authors  of  the 
"  Unseen  Universe,"  for  example,  hold  to  be  an 
admissible  scientific  speculation,  in  harmony  with 
our  present  kno^vledge  of  the  universe  ;  such  a 
revelation  would  have  been  utterly  unintel- 
ligible and  practically  useless  to  the  Jews  of 
old ;  and  so,  possibly,  a  revelation  expressed 
in  the  terms  of  modern  science,  in  twenty-five 
or  a  hundred  years  from  now,  might  aj^pear  as 
mere  guess-work  to  those  who  at  that  time 
shall  have  peered  farther  into  the  mj^steries  of 
creation.  One  added  sense  might  open  to  our 
view  worlds  of  heavenly  felicity ;  some  in- 
creased development  even  of  these  poor  and 
limited  senses  might  enable  us  to  answer  ques- 
tions before  which  now  our  wisest  science  must 
stand  dumb.     When  you  can  tell  me  the  rela- 


Il8  DISCOURSES. 

tion  of  your  mind  to  your  body ;  wlien  you  can 
locate  in  the  brain  or  heart  the  thous^ht  which 
3"ou  are  now  thinking;  when  you  can  locate 
human  affections  in  the  body — those  affections 
w^hich,  though  we  know  of  no  cell  of  matter 
which  is  their  local  habitation,  are  neverthe- 
less real  and  abiding,  if  anything  in  this  world 
is  abiding; — then  you  may  be  warranted  in 
finding  trouble  with  the  Bible  on  account  of  its 
silence  concerning  the  place  of  heaven;  then 
you  may  require  Christian  theology  to  answer, 
Avhere  is  heaven ;  but  not  until  you  can  locate 
the  human  soul  in  the  body,  need  you  be  dis- 
turbed about  the  failure  of  the  Bible  to  locate 
heaven  in  the  universe,  or  anxious  about  the 
relation  of  the  world  to  come  to  astronomy. 

Again,  the  relation  of  the  next  life  to  time  is 
left  in  the  shadow  of  our  present  ignorance. 
Thne,  like  space,  is  a  metaphysical  problem. 
What  we  call  time,  indeed,  is  a  rate  of  motion 
to  which  our  present  vital  processes  have  been 
adapted,  and  to  which  we  have  become  habitu- 
ated. It  is  easy  for  us  to  conceive  that  this 
rate  may  be  different  for  different  worlds ; 
that  within  the  limits  of  the  sidereal  system 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSTTIVE  ELEMENTS. 


119 


one  day  in  one  star,  in  comparison  with  the 
revolutions  of  other  stars,  may  be  as  a  thousand 
years.  Time  is  accordingly  a  relative  concep- 
tion, not  the  same  thing  perhaps  for  the  insects 
of  a  summer's  day  as  for  man  in  his  life  of 
three  score  years  and  ten.  It  changes  with  the 
more  slow  or  more  rapid  pulsations  of  life  in 
the  animate  creation ;  and  of  what  absolute 
time  or  eternity  may  be  we  have  no  adequate 
conception.  Eternity  is  an  order  of  existence 
to  which  our  present  pulses  of  life  have  not 
been  made  to  beat,  and  into  which  our  souls 
while  tabernacling  in  this  mortality  are  not  yet 
introduced.  These  words,  the  infinite,  the 
eternal,  are  by  no  means  meaningless  to  us 
now  ;  they  do  express  to  us,  at  least,  the  spirit's 
native  sense  of  its  own  birth  into  a  higher 
order  of  existence  than  can  be  seen,  or  mai-ked 
by  the  successions  of  outward  nature.  These 
words  are  not  utter  blanks,  they  are  the  spirit's 
assertion  of  something  more  than  the  finite 
and  the  temporal,  the  sense  and  joy  of  which 
cannot  be  taken  from  it;  but  these  words  of 
spiritual  suggestion  cannot  be  brought  down  to 
the     definitions    of    the    understanding,     they 


I20  DISCOURSES. 

transcend  all  tlioucrlit.  Let  ns  not  foriret  tbat 
the  very  word  over  wliicli  faith  and  despair 
raise  so  hot  a  contention  is  a  word  incapable  of 
definition,  and  suggestive  of  an  order  of  exist- 
ence utterly  beyond  the  realization  of  the  hu- 
man imagination.  Part,  at  least,  of  the 
difficulty  in  the  ordinary  discussions  of  the 
doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  is  due  to  our 
confusion  of  the  difference  between  the  two 
kinds  or  modes  of  existence  indicated  by  the 
words,  the  temporal  and  the  eternal,  and  our 
attempt  to  conceive  of  the  one  in  terms  of  the 
other.  But  this  confusion  of  terms  is  without 
warrant  either  in  reason  or  Scripture.  The 
Bible  nowhere  attempts  to  represent  eternity 
by  a  succession  of  periods  of  time  indefinitely 
prolonged.  Scholars  frequently  disj^ute  con- 
cerning the  meaning  of  those  Greek  adjectives 
by  which  Jesus  characterized  real  life  and 
death;  whether  they  mean  endless,  or  for 
ages  of  ages ;  everlasting,  or  for  some  period  of 
duration ;  forever,  or  as  long  as  the  object  to 
which  they  are  applied  has  its  natural  con- 
tinuance. But  it  is  enough  for  me  to  know  that 
Jesus  used  these  adjectives  to  impress  men  with 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.      121 

tlie  vast,  unspeakable  difference  between  the 
true  life  and  sin  in  tlieir  divergent  moral  desti- 
nies ;  yet  he  never  sought  to  define  the  mean- 
ing of  these  words;  he  left  them  indetermin- 
ate, as  they  must  be,  to  the  understanding — 
words  of  great  suggestion,  but  not  to  be 
measured  by  us  in  any  terms  of  duration. 
Jesus  taught  plainly  that  men  are  deciding 
here  and  now  between  life  and  death,  and  he 
used  the  strongest  adjectives  of  human  speech 
to  indicate  the  absolute  moral  difference  in  this 
world,  and  in  the  world  to  come,  between  those 
two  states;  but  he  did  not  endeavor  to  depict 
before  the  imagination  of  his  hearers  the  pos- 
sible length  of  duration  of  the  future  life ;  he 
did  not  gather  together  the  years,  and  heap  up 
ages  upon  ages,  in  order  that  by  a  mere  human 
imagination  of  time  indefinitely  expanded  and 
prolonged  he  might  appall  them,  and  for  aught 
we  know  utterly  mislead  them  as  to  what  the 
reality  of  the  eternal  existence  shall  be — that 
final  state  of  existence  when  the  angel  shall 
proclaim  that  time  shall  l)e  no  longer.  There 
is  absolutely  no  justification  in  Scripture  for 
the  crude  metaphysics,  the  vain   and   painful 


122  DISCOURSES. 

fiction,  of  the  once  too  customary  theological 
massing  of  times  and  multij)lication  of  the 
ages,  to  represent  the  thought  of  Jesus  in  his 
solemn  words,  tremulous  with  meanings  beyond 
meanings — eternal  life,  eternal  sin.  I  accept 
these  words  of  Jesus  as  he  uttered  them,  but 
not  as  they  have  often  been  misunderstood  and 
overburdened  with  human  definitions  and  vain 
imaginations.  Jesus,  as  I  cannot  but  think, 
purposely  left  this  side  of  his  doctrine  in  a^vvful 
indefiniteness,  knowing  that  we  are  not  capable 
of  receiving  more  than  intimations  of  the  here- 
after. I  accept  with  imiDlicit  faith  these  fear- 
ful sayings  of  our  Lord,  but  I  will  not  forget 
that  he  remembered  our  io-norance  when  he 
used  them,  and  that  his  adjectives  represent 
what  to  a  large  extent  must  remain  the  un- 
known quantities  in  the  as  yet  unfinished 
problem  of  good  and  evil ;  and  I  deny,  there- 
fore, the  Christian  right  of  any  theology,  or  any 
church,  to  trouble  me  with  difiiculties  beyond 
the  grasp  of  my  understanding,  -drawn  from 
that  portion  of  revelation  which  is  left  in  ob- 
scurity ;  or  to  disturb  and  confuse  my  faith  in 
those  truths  of  eternal  life  and  eternal  sin  of 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.      123 

wliicli  I  can  now  liave  some  compreliension,  and 
gain  8ome  verification  in  my  present  experience, 
by  bringing  to  me  questions,  or  dark  heart-de- 
vouring doubts,  wLicli  may  be  drawn  fortli  by 
a  remorseless  logic  from  the  shadows  of  the 
mysteries  of  Grod's  wisdom  in  which  Jesus,  with 
a  finer  human  instinct  as  well  as  diviner  com- 
passion for  our  weakness  of  faith  and  littleness 
of  knowledge,  chose  to  leave  them  undisturbed. 
Then  there  is  a  third  truth  which  seems  to 
be  left  in  the  shadows  of  the  Gospel  of  the 
kingdom ;  and  that  is  the  nature  and  intent  of 
the  divine  administration  of  Hades — the  place 
of  dej^arted  spirits — from  the  time  the  dying 
leave  the  present  world  until  the  judgment  dayJ 
There  is  a  period  of  life  after  death  and  before 
that  last,  great  day  when  this  world-age  shall 
be  over,  of  ^vhich  the  Bible  gives  us  some  intima- 
tion, but  concerning  which  it  afPoi'ds  no  distinct 
revelation.  It  does  tell  us  something  concern- 
ing that  intermediate  state  ;  enough,  at  least,  to 
assure  us  that  it  shall  not  prove  to  be  a  loss  of 
consciousness,  and  purposeless  sleep  of  ages  for 
souls  awaiting  the  great  day  of  awakening. 
The  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus  is 


124  DISCOURSES. 

sufficient  to  dispel  this  thouglit  of  an  inter- 
mediate suspension  of  activities  among  the 
Avaiting  dead — a  supposition  which  would  be, 
indeed,  alike  unworthy  of  the  soul  and  of  God's 
resources  for  its  continued  growth  and  perfect- 
ing. But  the  Bible  only  yields  hints  enough 
concerning  God's  purposes  in  Hades  to  show  ns 
ho^7  much  there  is  still  to  be  communicated  to 
us,  and  to  prevent  us  meanwhile  from  dogmatiz- 
ing overmuch  upon  this  whole  subject  of  the  final 
destiny  of  the  dej^jarted.  There  are  those  pas- 
sages which  speak  of  Jesus'  descent  into  Hades, 
and  of  his  preaching  to  the  dead,  to  a  class  of 
souls  represented  as  being  in  prison;  and  we 
should  interpret  these  passages  by  the  same  rules 
which  govern  us  in  the  interpretation  of  other 
Scriptures.  It  ^vill  not  do  for  us  to  take  literally 
some  text  concerning  the  final  state  of  the  im- 
penitent, and  then  to  accommodate  to  them 
these  obscure  passages  ;  it  would  be  fairer  and 
wiser  to  admit  that  they  may  be  intimations  of 
some  truths  now  missinf^  in  our  doctrine  of 
eternal  punishment,  and  for  the  lack  of  which, 
if  we  choose  to  put  aside  utterly  these  hints  and 
to  forget  our  own  ignorance,  our  very  faith  in 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.      125 

God's  justice  and  mercy  may  suffer  harm.  I 
will  not  allow  myself,  by  any  dogmatic  bias,  to 
strain  or  warp  the  meaning  of  any  of  these 
doubtful  or  apparently  conflicting  passages  of 
Scripture.  If  I  cannot  understand  exactly  what 
they  do  mean,  I  can  at  least  refrain  from  put- 
ting my  own  meanings  into  them.  These  texts, 
and  certain  glowing  passages  in  which  St.  Paul 
speaks  of  the  final  completion  of  Christ's  king- 
dom, do  not  teach  explicitly  a  second  probation, 
or  mean  without  doubt  that  there  shall  be  a 
final  reconciliation  of  evil  to  God ;  they  do  not 
alter  the  fact  that  the  burden  of  the  Scriptures 
is  the  utter  urgency  of  a  light  moral  decision 
now  before  the  Cross,  and  they  hold  uj^  no 
promise  of  the  hereafter  to  any  man  who  here 
and  now  determines  himself  against  the  Spirit 
of  Christ ;  yet  so  long  as  such  expressions  have 
been  left  in  the  Bible,  our  theology  ought,  at 
least,  not  to  be  over-confident  that  it  has  learned 
the  whole  mind  of  the  Spirit  concerning  God's 
work  and  purpose  in  the  interval — we  know  not 
how  long  it  may  be — between  death  and  the  final 
judgment;  and  these  Scriptures  are  suflicient  to 
give  us  a  needed,  though  too  often  overlooked, 


126  DISCOURSES. 

intimation  that  the  Lord  lias  his  own  adminis- 
tration of  the  regions  of  the  dead  until  the  Mes- 
sianic kingdom  shall  be  delivered  up  to  the 
Father ;  and  of  what  the  Father  and  the  Christ 
are  workins;  there  we  need,  to  know  far  more 
than  has  been  disclosed  to  us  before  we  are 
competent  to  judge  the  ways  of  God  to  men, 
or  have  reason  to  doubt  that  the  awards  of  the 
last  great  assize  shall  be  in  accordance  with 
truth,  justice,  and  mercy.  I  feel  that  I  have  a 
moral  right — a  right  guaranteed  by  these 
Scriptures — to  take  refuge  from  the  perj)lexi- 
ties  of  the  final  issues  of  evil  in  my  own  igno- 
rance and  in  the  silence  of  God's  Word ;  to  find 
peace,  comfort,  and  hope  in  the  merciful  ob- 
scurities of  revelation.  It  is  .hard,  indeed,  for 
us  to  imagine  how  the  processes  of  life  can  at 
any  point  be  brought  to  a  sudden  halt ;  how 
the  mere  accident  of  death — for  death  is  only  an 
accidental  circumstance,  not  an  inward  change 
— can  fit  an  untrained  and  unchastened  Chris- 
tian for  the  23ure  vision  of  the  sujDernal  glory. 
All  the  analogies  of  experience  would  seem  to 
compel  us  to  believe  that  disciplinary  j)rocesses 
of  life  must  be  continued  after  death ;  and  in 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.      127 

this  intermediate  period,  suggested  by  some 
Scriptures,  room  would  be  found  for  the  play 
of  those  forces  of  moral  development  whose 
working  we  observe  in  the  present  life.  Not, 
then,  until  the  day  of  revelation  shall  disclose 
to  our  eyes  the  secrets  of  Hades,  are  we  war- 
ranted in  raising  one  question  of  our  troubled 
understandings,  or  one  doubt  of  our  beating 
hearts,  concerning  the  just  judgments  of  God 
in  eternity.  ^ 

The  reformers  found  in  their  day  that  this 
half -revealed  truth  of  the  intermediate  life  had 
developed  into  the  overgrown  and  corrupt 
doctrine  of  purgatory — a  doctrine  saturated 
through  and  through  with  the  poison  of  meri- 
torious works  and  penance;  and  rightly,  there- 
fore, the  reformers  laid  the  axe  at  the  root  of 
the  tree,  and  cut  down  the  whole  deadly  doc- 
trine. But  back  in  the  minds  of  the  Christian 
fathers  had  been  simpler  ideas  of  moral  purifi- 
cation which  had  grown  into  that  corrupt  Papal 
teaching;  and  back  still  in  Scriptural  ground 
may  lie,  perhaps,  the  germs  of  a  better  doctrine 
of  an  intermediate  life,  and  its  processes  of  puri- 
fication and   perfecting,  which   it   may  remain 


128  DISCOURSES. 

for  our  Protestant  theology  more  carefully  to 
discriminate,  and  to  cultivate,  for  the  healing 
of  many  souls  now  bruised  and  wounded  by 
too  bare  and  crushing  dogmatism  ^  I  do  not 
know — I  speak  now  not  for  orthodoxy,  I  speak 
only  for  myself — but  I  have  often  been  disposed 
to  question  as  not  in  accordance  with  the  truest 
instincts  of  hearts  under  the  illumination  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ,  and  as  alien  to  an  older  and 
better  faith,  traces  of  which  are  to  be  found  in 
the  liturgies  of  the  early  chui'ch,  that  Protestant 
tradition — for  it  is  only  a  Protestant  tradition — 
which,  while  it  permits  us  through  all  the  days 
of  our  friend's  lives  to  bear  ever  upon  our  hearts 
before  God  those  who  are  near  -to  us,  and  dearer 
than  life,  forbids  us,  the  moment  after  the  acci- 
dent of  death  has  happened  to  them,  to  mention 
before  the  God  of  the  living  the  names  which 
for  years  have  always  been  remembered  in  our 
prayers  ®. 

So  much,  then,  should  be  said  of  those  ele- 
ments of  this  doctrine  which  are  left  in  the  ob- 
scurities of  revelation ;  and  when  we  once  suc- 
ceed in  locating  much  that  is  mysterious,  and  in 
determining  wisely  what  we  are  not  yet  able  to 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS. 


129 


know,  or  ought  not  to  expect  now  to  be  taught 
of  God ;  then,  if  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken,  we 
shall  find  our  faith  happily  delivered  from  the 
burden  of  many  difficulties,  which,  if  we  try  to 
carry  them,  will  surely  oppress  our  reason  and 
bruise  our  hearts. 

But  now  I  wish  to  look  at  those  portions  of 
this  doctrine  upon  which  the  light  of  revelation 
does  seem  to  fall.  What  parts  of  this  truth,  in 
its  whole  extent  too  great  for  us,  are  brought 
down  to  the  grasp  of  our  reason  and  conscience? 
What  lines  of  it  can  we  follow  and  verify  in  our 
present  moral  experience? 

The  first  truth  of  the  doctrine  of  future  retri- 
bution, which  is  now  verifiable  in  part,  at  least, 
is  this :  God  in  eternity,  and  for  eternity,  shall 
judge  every  man  according  to  his  real,  fully- 
determined  character — not  according  to  the 
aj^pearance,  not  according  to  the  profession, 
nor  yet  in  accordance  with  any  interrupted  and 
incomplete  determination  of  character — but  ac- 
cording to  the  true  and  final  reality  of  his  being. 
.Wherever,  whenever,  however,  that  judgment 
shall  be  pronounced,  or  executed,  it  shall  be  a 
discrimination  of  characters  according  to  their 


I30  DISCOURSES. 

inmost  trutli  and  final  possibilities.  This  abso- 
lute moral  trutli  of  God's  eternal  judgments  is 
so  firmly  declared  in  the  Scriptures,  and  appeals 
so  directly  and  powerfully  to  the  moral  reason, 
that  I  will  not  take  time  in  discussing  the  evi- 
dence of  it,  but  will  simply  state  it  and  affirm  it. 
Again,  the  Bible,  as  it  seems  to  me,  does  turn 
to  the  light  in  which  our  human  reason  may 
see  this  truth  of  the  doctrine  of  retribution :  real 
and  final  judgment  of  character  is  a  judgment 
based  upon,  and  determined  by,  the  relation  of 
the  heart  of  man  to  God.  The  decisive  test  of 
character,  beyond  which  there  can  be  no  other, 
is  the  relation  of  the  life  to  the  living  God. 
This  is  the  only  comprehensive  judgment  of  a 
moral  agent;  all  other  means  of  judgment,  all 
other  relations  in  which  men  may  be  judged, 
are  but  partial.  You  cannot  know  fully  and 
finally  what  a  man  is  by  observing  him  in  his 
relation  to  his  neighbor,  his  parents,  or  his 
family ;  one  man  may  be  a  good  father,  a  faith- 
ful husband,  a  kind  neighbor,  and  yet  be  utterly 
dishonest  in  his  business;  while  another  man 
may  be  strictly  honorable  in  all  his  business 
transactions,   and  yet   a  disgrace   to  the  very 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.      131 

name  of  man  in  his  home.  There  is  no  human 
relation  which  is  not  partial;  which  encloses 
manhood  or  womanhood  on  all  sides,  and  which 
can,  therefore,  be  the  means  of  a  comprehen- 
sive judgment  of  character;  nor  can  all  these 
relations  together  give  the  full  measure  of  a 
man.  But  God  is  all  in  all ;  and  in  the  relation 
of  the  soul  to  the  God  who  made  it,  all  these 
human  relationships  are  summed  up  and  in- 
cluded, and  its  whole  life  may,  therefore,  be 
judged.  If  the  heart  be  really  good  toward 
God,  it  will  not  be  bad  toward  any  created 
thing.  What  a  man  is  toward  his  God,  that  he 
is  in  his  heart ;  that  he  is  in  the  reality  of  his 
character.  Hence  there  shall  come  at  the  end 
of  time  a  day  when  God  shall  be  seen  to  be 
all  in  all,  and  when  our  whole  human  history 
shall  be  brought  for  its  last  judgment  under  the 
light  of  perfectly  manifested  divinity ;  when  as 
the  souls  of  men  shall  be  found  in  sympathy  with 
Gocl,  or  shall  be  pierced  by  the  beams  of  the 
ineffable  holiness,  as  they  shall  be  drawn  by  a 
s^veet  and  resistless  attraction  to  the  very 
throne  of  grace,  or  as  they  shall  be  repelled  by 
the  evil  magnetism  of  their  own  sinful  desires 


132  DISCOURSES. 

away  from  the  One  central  Light  and  Glory, 
they  shall  find  every  man  his  own  23lace — and 
it  may  be  the  mercy  in  the  justice  of  God  which 
shall  suffer  every  man  to  find  his  own  place — 
in  the  heavenly  light,  or  in  what  Jesus  calls  the 
outer  darkness. 

There  is  a  third  and  most  important  element 
of  this  doctrine  upon  which  the  Scripture  sheds 
some  light,  and  which  appeals  directly  to  our 
moral  reason,  viz. :  There  shall  be  differences  of 
degrees  in  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  the 
future  life.  Heaven  is  not  one  vast  celestial 
communism.  But  this  Scriptural  and  rational- 
truth  of  distinctions  in  glory  and  differences  of 
blessino-s  hereafter  seems  to  have  fallen  almost 
into  disuse  in  our  current  Protestant  theology ; 
yet  it  was  a  church  father  who  said  that  the  per- 
son who  denies  degi'ees  in  rewards  and  punish- 
ments is  a  heretic.  Evangelical  preaching  can 
ill  afford,  among  its  motives  to  right  and  beau- 
tiful lives,  not  to  insist  upon  this  too  neglected 
truth,  that  there  are,  and  from  the  very  nature 
of  virtue  and  moral  agency  there  must  be,  dif- 
ferences of  degrees  in  the  happiness  or  unhap- 
piness  of  the  future  life ;  differences  of  capacity, 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.      133 

among  saints  and  sinners,  for  heaven  and  hell. 
Scriptural  hints  should  have  kept  us  in  mind  of 
this  influential  truth  of  immediate  practical  con- 
cern, as  it  surely  is,  in  the  conduct  of  life.  You 
remember  we  are  told  that  the  servant  who 
knew  his  lord's  will  and  prepared  not  himself, 
neither  did  according  to  his  will,  shall  be  beaten 
with  many  stripes ;  but  he  that  knew  not,  and 
did  commit  things  worthy  of  stripes,  shall  be 
beaten  with  few  stripes ;  and  in  the  parable  of 
the  talents  we  have  Jesus'  express  declaration 
that  unto  every  one  that  hath  shall  be  given, 
but  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away 
even  that  which  he  hath ; — it  shall  be  given,  that 
is,  to  every  one  who  hath,  according  to  his  ca- 
pacity to  receive ;  and  he  who  hath  not  shall 
suffer  loss  according  to  his  capacity  to  lose. 
You  remember,  also,  that  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  the  rewards  which  crown  the  different 
virtues  are  each  admirably  adapted  to  the  spe- 
cific nature  of  the  several  virtues ;  tliere  seems 
to  be  a  peculiar  fitness  and  some  law  of  propor- 
tion in  the  blessings  promised.  Thus  the  Bible 
does  suggest  quite  plainly  this  truth,  which  we 
ought  to  take  almost  for  granted,  as  a  matter 


134  DISCOURSES. 

of  course,  witliout  any  need  of  revelation  to 
teacli  it  to  us,  that,  as  there  are  now  differences 
of  capacity  for  things  good  or  evil  developing 
themselves  among  men,  and  within  the  same 
church-fold,  so  there  shall  be  diiferences  of 
quality  and  degrees  of  happiness  in  the  future 
life.  In  heaven  every  cup  doubtless  shall  be 
full,  but  this  life  may  determine  great  differ- 
ences between  the  sizes  of  the  cups.  Each  soul 
shall  doubtless  be  as  happy  then  as  it  can  be ; 
but  what  differences  of  caj^acity  for  love  and 
heaven  human  hearts  are  developing  now !  So, 
then,  there  is  a  real  and  delightful  sense  in  which, 
all  along  through  our  earthly  existence,  we  may 
lay  up  for  ourselves  treasures  in  heaven.  A  man 
can  take  nothing^  with  him  from  this  world — 
the  gold  which  he  hoards  up  will  fall  into  the 
grasp  of  other  hands, — but  what  a  man  has 
gained  in  himself  that  he  takes  with  him  into 
the  world  to  come; — the  splendid  treasures  of 
memory,  the  treasures  of  disciplined  powers,  of 
enlarged  capacities,  of  a  pure  and  loving  heart, 
all  are  treasures  which  a  man  may  carry  in 
him  and  with  him  into  that  world  where  neither 
moth  nor  rust  doth  corrupt.     The  eye,  indeed, 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.      135 

may  lose  its  sight  at  death,  aud  the  cunning 
liund  of  the  workman  may  lose  its  skill,  l)ut 
that  enrichment  of  mind  which  may  have  been 
gained  through  the  eye  in  patient  and  loving 
observation  of  this  world,  so  Ijeautiful  and  ex- 
pressive of  God's  thoughts,  shall  not  be  lost, 
and  the  discipline  of  powers  which  may  have 
been  acquired  through  years  of  faithful  work- 
manship shall  continue  as  a  spiritual  capacity 
in  the  world  to  come.  What  we  lay  up,  too,  in 
the  lives  of  others  are  riches  which  may  return 
to  us  again  in  the  world  to  come.  Souls  that 
have  gone  before  us  freighted  richly  with  our 
affections,  and  carrying  parts  of  our  lives  with 
them  to  the  other  shore,  shall  await  us  there  to 
share  with  us  once  more  the  treasures  of  friend- 
ship which  in  them  we  may  already  have  safely 
laid  up  in  heaven.  All  that  we  may  do  or  gain 
in  the  development  of  our  powers,  in  enlarging 
the  soul,  in  enriching  the  heart,  in  increasing 
our  capacity  to  love ;  all  that  providence  may 
gain  for  us  through  sorrow,  trial,  and  the  "  with- 
held completions "  of  the  present,  in  quicken- 
ing our  susceptibility  of  mind  and  heart  for 
heaven ;  all  these  acquisitions  shall  enter  into 


136  DISCOURSES. 

the  happiness  and  rewards  of  the  future  life. 
Of  such  rewards  we  may  well  deem  ourselves 
unworthy,  and  it  will  be  of  grace  that  we  are 
saved;  but  these  attainments  of  Christian  en- 
deavor, these  rewards  of  faithfulness  to  our 
own  powers,  and  our  own  opportunities,  are 
held  out  to  us  in  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  as  incentives  to  every  noble  ambition, 
every  honorable  2)ursuit,  every  true  study  of 
God's  thoughts,  and  every  life-long  imitation  of 
the  Christ. 

This,  then,  seems  to  me  to  be  the  purpose  of 
revelation,  not  to  gratify  curiosity,  but  to  train 
character ;  not  to  give  the  future  to  our  knowl- 
edge, but  to  save  our  hearts  for  its  possibili- 
ties of  immortality.  This  mortal  stage  in  all 
its  lights  and  shadows  seems  arranged  for 
scenes  of  probation.  The  intent  of  God  in  the 
Bible  evidently  is  not  so  to  open  the  secrets  of 
the  hereafter  as  to  enable  us  to  answer  those 
questions,  deep  and  dark,  whose  shadows  fall 
upon  us  as  we  think  of  the  past  and  the  future  ; 
but  Jesus  taught  his  disciples  to  impress  upon 
men  with  all  earnestness  the  unspeakable  im- 
portance  for   our  whole   future    of   making    a 


NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  ELEMENTS.      137 

right  decision  of  life  now ;  and  to  open  before 
our  as2:)irations  such  views  of  the  future  life,  of 
its  enlarged  opportunities,  its  grand  possibili- 
ties, and  its  divine  attractiveness,  as  shall  be  to 
us  in  our  toil  and  in  our  sorrows,  in  our  studies 
and  our  business,  in  all  our  thinking,  and  in  all 
our  loving,  an  inspiration  and  a  joy,  a  pure 
enthusiasm  of  spirit,  and  as  a  very  baptism  of 
grace  from  on  high  upon  our  daily  life. 

Revelation,  then,  to  put  what  I  would  say 
into  one  word,  does  give  to  our  rational  belief 
a  practical  heaven  and  a  practical  hell — enough 
of  each  is  declared  for  all  practical  purposes  of 
the  present  life.  We  do  know  and  can  under- 
stand enough  concerning  both  to  lead  us  to  put 
ourselves  at  once  into  trainins:  for  the  life  of 
glory  and  virtue  which  we  may  hope  through 
Christ  to  find  as  the  heavenly  fruition  of  earth's 
best  life ;  and  to  fear  as  the  loss  of  tiie  soul 
itself,  and  the  darkness  of  all  true  life  and  love, 
the  death  of  eternal  sin^''. 

Remember,  then,  let  me  urge  as  the  conclusion 
of  the  whole  matter,  that  we  do  have  Bil)le 
enough  for  present  duty.  Though  the  doctrines 
of  our  faith  may  be  left  in  partial  obscurity, 


138  DISCOURSES. 

and  there  are  great  spaces  of  shadow  even  in 
revelation,  the  duties  of  the  right  life  are  the 
illuminated  texts  of  Scripture.  Repent,  believe, 
be  converted,  love,  pray,  have  the  spirit  of 
Christ, — there  can  be  little  moral  doubt  about 
the  nature  of  the  life  which  the  commandments 
of  Christ  enjoin.  And  though  we  must  needs 
walk  ofttimes  in  the  mists,  we  may  keep  with 
resolute  feet  the  w^ay,  seeing  not  far  on  either 
hand,  yet  following  surely  the  path  of  duty 
once  trod  by  the  Master  who  has  gone  to  pre- 
pare a  place  for  us.  Ai*e  we  obeying  that 
Gospel  which  has  in  its  voice  to  our  hearts  the 
very  sweetness  of  God's  charity  blended  with 
the  deep  undertone  of  his  justice  ?  the  Gospel 
in  which  heavenly  mercy  and  hoj^e  are  in 
harmony  with  infinite  truth  and  power,  as  the 
songs  of  birds  of  the  air  make  no  discord  over 
the  deep  sub-base  of  Niagara's  ceaseless  music  ? 


VI. 

SOCIAL   IJIMOETALITY. 

And  I  John  saw  the  holy  city,  new  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from 
God  out  of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  husband.  — 
Rev.  xxl  2. 

Society,  then,  is  immortal.  It  is  the  city  of 
God  which  the  revelator  saw  coming  from 
heaven.  The  hope  of  social  immortality  forms 
the  ground-tone,  and  runs  through  the  whole 
woof  of  the  Biblical  doctrine  of  the  future  life. 
This  idea  of  the  immortality  of  society  is  one  of 
those  truths  which  might  aptly  be  called  the 
unconscious  beliefs  of  the  Bible.  The  inspired 
writers,  almost  without  noticing  it,  or  thinking 
about  it,  seem  to  take  it  for  granted  in  all  their 
discourse  concerning  the  hereafter.  We  ought 
to  receive  with  the  utmost  confidence  those 
truths  which  pervade,  like  an  atmospliere,  the 
whole  Bible.  The  everywhere  understood,  un- 
conscious faiths    of    the    Bible    are    the    very 


I40  DISCOURSES. 

last  truths  which  we  should  doubt  or  question, 
even  thouo;h  it  mio-ht  be  difficult  to  find  in  the 
Scriptures  a  single  proof-text  of  definite  teach- 
ing concerning  them.  The  hope  of  social  im- 
mortality— the  expectation  of  the  city  of  God — 
belono;s  to  this  order  of  Biblical  truths.  Yet  so 
far  have  we  departed  from  this  all-pervasive 
Scriptural  thought  of  the  city  of  God  and  the 
immortality  of  society,  that  we  sometimes  hear 
Christians  asking  whether  we  shall  recognize 
our  friends  in  heaven.  As  thous^h  an  isolated 
immortality  were  any  more  a  future  possibility 
than  a  merely  individual  life  is  a  present  pos- 
sibility ;  as  though  God  had  made  each  soul  a 
little  drop  of  being  by  itself,  and  not  caused 
every  child  rather  to  be  born  into  the  depend- 
encies of  human  existence,  and  to  come  to  its 
own  life  only  through  the  lives  of  others. 
When  did  God  ever  create  a  single  soul  to 
abide  in  itself  alone  ?  to  dwell  unrelated  and 
complete  in  the  closed  circle  of  its  own  little 
individuality?  Even  if  we  could  conceive  of  a 
Roul  existing  by  itself  as  a  solitary  human  atom ; 
if  it  ever  were  possible  for  a  human  being  to 
become  a  man  in  and  of  himself  alone,  it  would 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY. 


141 


be  better  for  that  man  if  be  bad  never  been 
born.  An  isolated,  friendless  life  of  a  few 
years  becomes  almost  unendurable.  Loneliness 
pi-olonged  to  eternity  would  be  intolerable  tor- 
ment. That  man  wbo  can  even  imag-ine  him- 
self  as  enjoying  heaven  for  himself  alone  is  not 
fit  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The  perfect  in- 
dividual is  not  possible  apart  from  society. 

Very  different  from  the  severe,  excessive  in- 
dividualism which  pervades  the  Calvinistic 
philosophy  of  man,  is  the  broad,  healthy,  social 
philosophy  of  human  nature  which  is  taken  for 
granted  in  the  Bible,  and  which  gives  form  and 
shape  to  the  revelator's  vision  of  the  coming 
from  heaven  of  the  city  of  God.  Indeed,  if  we 
^vill  but  divest  ourselves  of  merely  textual  and 
school -boy  habits  of  interpreting  the  Scriptures, 
and  seek  rather  to  follow  the  movement,  and  to 
catch  the  spirit,  and  so  to  receive  the  real  in- 
spiration of  the  Bible,  we  shall  find  ourselves 
with  regard  to  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  future 
life,  as  well  as  in  respect  to  many  other  truths, 
believing  with  a  much  healthier,  stronger,  and 
exultant  faith.  If  we  take  pains  to  follow  the 
growth  of  the  hope  of  immortality  through  the 


142  DISCOURSES. 

Bible,  we  shall  not  be  at  a  loss  to  see  Low  the 
whole  Biblical  teaching  of  immortality  comes  to 
fruition  in  this  final  truth  of  the  holy  city,  the 
new  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from  God  out  of 
heaven. 

For  the  idea  of  the  perpetuation  of  a  chosen 
race,  not  the  idea  of  continued  personal  exist- 
ence, forms  in  the  Old  Testament  the  founda- 
tion, the  broad  fundamental  basis,  for  the  up- 
building of  the  hope  of  immortality.  The 
Hebrews  looked  forward  to  the  continuance  of 
the  family-name  in  Israel,  and  to  the  final 
splendors  of  a  Messianic  kingdom.  Then,  upon 
that  broad,  social  ground,  the  hope  of  personal 
immortality  might  spring  uj),  and  reach  its 
Christian  perfection. 

But  we  usually  reverse  the  Biblical  argument. 
We  reason  that  the  individual  soul  cannot 
cease  to  exist;  and  then,  having  satisfied  our- 
selves that  we  personally  are  to  keep  on  living 
after  death,  we  begin  to  wonder  whether  we 
shall  live  also  in  the  renewed  companionship  of 
our  old  friends.  So  we  make  the  Biblical  faith 
in  immortality  stand  upon  its  apex  instead  of 
upon   its    broad   social  base.      The   Bible,  we 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY.  143 

seem  to  forget,  rests  the  hope  of  the  individual 
upon  the  good  purpose  of  God  for  the  race  ; 
the  blessed  life  of  the  saved  soul  here  and  here- 
after depends  upon  the  gracious  work  of  God 
for  humanity — not  for  the  elect — but  for  hu- 
manity, in  that  Christ  died  for  all. 

When  Jesus  came,  bringing  immortality  to 
light,  we  read  that  he  went  about  all  Galilee 
preaching  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom.  In 
Jesus'  speech  we  do  not  find  the  period  put  to 
this  sentence  w^here  our  popular  usage  usually 
stops; — we  say  preaching  the  Gospel — here  it  is 
said,  preaching  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom. 
He  preached  not  the  Gospel  merely  of  indi- 
vidual salvation,  as  though  each  little  man  were 
saved  for  his  own  little  self — but  the  Gospel  of 
a  redeemed  society,  a  new,  purified,  glorified 
society,  the  Gospel — there  is  no  better  phrase 
for  it  than  Jesus'  own  word — the  Gospel  of  tlie 
kingdom.  To  preach  Christ's  Gospel,  therefore, 
is  not  merely  to  preach  to  you  in  order  that  you 
may  be  saved  at  last,  but  that  you  may  be  saved 
as  members  of  the  new  heavenly  society ;  not 
for  your  own  selves  only,  but  saved  in  and  for 
the  communion  of  the  saints,  and  for  the  delight- 


144  DISCOURSES. 

ful  f riendsliips  and  reciprocities  of  the  society  of 
Christ  on  earth  and  in  heaven.  And  as  Jesus 
preached,  so  he  worked;  and  the  Father  was 
with  him  in  that  divinest  of  works,  the  creation 
of  a  new  society  out  of  the  chaos  of  sin.  This 
is  Christianity — not  a  new  doctrine,  not  another 
law,  not  a  better  code  of  ethics — but  a  new 
society  of  forgiven  souls,  founded  in  the  love  of 
God,  and  made  one  in  the  communion  of  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

You  can  hardly  fail  to  notice  how  widely  our 
common  speech  concerning  salvation  has  de- 
parted from  this  broader  and  deeper  Biblical 
teaching.  I  wish  now  to  present  the  argument 
for  immortality  in  the  light  of  this  purer  and 
most  Christian  conception  of  the  holy  city  of 
God. 

We  may  infer  that  human  society  is  immortal 
both  from  what  it  is  and  from  what  it  is  not. 
So  far  as  it  is  now  finished,  and  so  far,  also,  as 
it  is  at  present  incomplete,  human  society 
prophesies  the  coming  from  heaven  of  the  holy 
city  of  God. 

First,  then,  I  argue  social  immortality  from 
what    society    already   has   become   so   far   as 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY.  145 

the  Creator  lias  fiuislied  it  and  pronounced  it 
good. 

Let  me  at  the  outset  put  the  reasoning  before 
you  in  its  bare  intellectuality,  and  then  we  may 
feel  the  moral  force  of  it  through  some  concrete 
illustrations  of  it.  Human  society,  then,  I 
would  say,  so  far  at  least  as  it  is  finished,  is  a 
creation  possessing  al)solute  moral  worth,  and 
therefore  it  must  belong  to  the  eternities. 
Society  is  not  an  accidental  condition,  a  mere 
circumstance  of  human  life,  but  a  moral  good 
in  and  of  itself,  absolutely  indispensable  to 
finite  beings  for  their  full,  personal  growth 
and  perfection.  The  wilderness  is,  indeed,  a 
necessary  part  of  every  true,  great  life,  but  in 
the  wilderness  alone  no  man  ever  reached  his 
full  stature.  The  least  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  greater  than  John  the  Baptist.  As 
possessing  absolute  moral  worth,  then,  and  as 
essential  to  the  full  fruition  of  individual  life, 
society  is,  and  from  its  very  nature  must  be,  of 
the  eternal.     It  cannot  pass  away. 

Such  is  the  argument  for  social  immortality 
presented  in  the  dry  logic  of  the  intellect.  But, 
in  order  to  realize  and  to  keep  fresh  our  great 


146  DISCOURSES. 

natural  faiths,  in  order  to  find  tlie  deep  sources 
of  permanent  joy,  we  must  be  guided  by  sorae- 
tliing  better  and  diviner  than  the  mere  logic  of 
the  understanding.  We  must  search  the  deep 
things  of  God  with  what  Wordsworth  calls  the 
"  feeling  intellect,"  the  "  vital  soul."  And  surely 
the  vital  soul  entering  into  and  making  its  own 
the  relations  of  human  society,  and  the  intima- 
cies of  pure  friendship,  needs  no  voice  from 
heaven  to  come  and  sing  in  its  heart  of  their 
immortality.  Thus  it  is  notew^orthy  how  in 
Carlyle's  recollections  of  his  father,  and  his 
richly  pathetic  tribute  to  his  ^v^ife,  this  native 
and  inexhaustible  belief  of  the  "feelino^  intel- 
lect "  in  the  immortality  of  our  lives  in  others, 
and  theirs  in  ours,  wells  up  at  times  to  the  sur- 
face out  of  the  deeps  of  Carlyle's  rugged  nature. 
A  lesson,  not  without  its  special  significance  for 
our  age,  lies  before  us  in  the  contrast  between 
the  labored  and  conscious  unbelief  of  the  great 
mind  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  had  never 
known  a  true  human  childhood,  who  never 
speaks  of  the  touch  of  a  mother's  love  upon  all 
the  springs  of  his  being,  and  whose  one  strong 
affection  ripened  late  upon  the  trunk  of  a  life 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY. 


147 


sturdy  and  straight,  but  all  too  leafless  and 
songless;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  primal 
faith,  greater  and  more  vital  than  conscious 
thought  or  confession,  of  this  rugged,  rustic 
nature,  which  was  full  of  thorns  and  repug- 
nances, indeed,  against  the  careless,  passing 
world,  but  which,  as  these  "  Reminiscences " 
show,  blossomed  into  at  least  one  deeply  human, 
unspeakably  tender,  life-long  love.  Life-long? 
Age-long  rather,  in  itself  heir  of  immortality^ ! 
At  the  close  of  one  of  these  reverent  memoiies 
of  his  "bright  one,"  he  exclaims,  as  though 
compelled  by  the  very  truth  of  the  love  in  him 
to  tliink  of  immortality  in  the  same  thought 
Avith  her,  "  What  bounty  too  is  in  heaven  !  " 
Memory  becomes  itself  an  upward  glance — tlie 
past  of  love  is  the  best  prophet  of  its  future. 
"What  bounty  too  is  in  heaven!"  So  \o\q., 
like  a  sunbeam,  proceeding  forth  from  the 
primal  source  of  life,  can  be  bound  by  no  little 
earthly  horizons,  but,  touching  this  world  with 
its  brief  moment  of  brightness,  glances  away,  to 
shine  on  and  on  in  God's  heavens  forever. 

The  absolute  moral  worth  of  the  society  into 
which  we  are  born,  and  hence,  in  some  form  of 


148  DISCOURSES. 

it,  the  eternal  conservation  of  its  good,  may  be 
known  hj  any  man  or  woman  wlio  will  enter  in 
a  large-liearted  way  into  any  of  its  obligations 
and  reciprocities.  If  we  would  believe  in  im- 
mortality we  must  live  as  immortals.  If  men 
are  content  to  live  as  the  brutes  tliat  perish, 
they  can  hardly  be  expected  to  rise  to  a  human 
faith  in  immortality.  A  pure  heart,  expanding 
in  the  possible  affections  of  humanity,  is  its 
own  best  reason  for  faith  in  immortality. 

There  is  one  human  relation,  in  particular, 
which,  as  it  may  become  an  almost  ideally  per- 
fect type  of  friendship,  contains,  to  my  think- 
ing, an  inexpressibly  rich  presage  of  social  im- 
mortality— I  mean  the  relation  of  brother  and 
sister — a  relation  too  often,  I  know,  made 
prosaic  and  commonplace,  but  in  God's  thought 
of  it,  I  must  believe,  and  in  some  human  realiza- 
tions of  it,  ideally  beautiful.  When  Charles 
Lamb  might  have  been  seen  walking  with  the 
sister  for  whom  he  had  willingly  sacrificed  the 
happiness  of  other  love,  upon  one  of  those  sad 
days  when  the  approaching  shadow  of  her 
strange  visitation  warned  them  that  they  must 
seek  the  only  refuge  earth  could  give  until  the 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY.  149 

storm  should  be  overpast — an  insane  asylum — 
leading  her  with  the  straight- jacket  under  his 
arm  through  the  streets  of  London  to  the  only 
safe  retreat,  and  waiting  in  his  own  deserted 
chambers  till  the  visitation  were  over,  to  lead 
her  home  again;  was  there  not  in  that  rare 
affection  conquering  death  in  life  something  im- 
mortal? something  by  its  present  existence 
proving  its  right  to  be  forever  ?  something 
which  God  could  not  have  made  for  naught, 
but  which,  as  He  looked  down  from  his  throne 
among  the  stars  upon  those  two  friends  in  their 
sad  walk  through  the  streets  of  London,  in 
their  lifelong  faithfulness  of  joy  and  sorrow, 
must  have  seemed  to  his  pure  eye  of  pity  to  be 
of  great  price  ?  Brother  and  sister — he  who 
may  once  have  been  so  blessed  of  heaven  as  to 
have  learned  the  real  meaning  of  those  words ; 
he  to  whom  in  the  mystery  of  this  life,  bounded 
its  whole  radiant  circumference  arouncf  by 
death's  darkness  and  the  great  unknown,  these 
words,  brother,  sister,  may  have  become  full  of 
pure  depths  of  remembered  meanings ;  he  has 
had  opened  in  the  knowledge  of  his  own  heart 
one  of  God's  own,  best  reasons  for  immortality. 


I50  DISCOURSES. 

Never  can  those  sacred  words,  brother,  sister, 
fall  lightly  from  his  lips ;  and  in  his  inmost 
soul  he  will  shrink  from  the  debasement  of 
those  rich  words  in  the  counterfeit  sentimental- 
ity of  pious  speech.  Words  to  him  genuine  as 
gold,  and  stamped  with  the  mintage  of  life's 
truest  worth,  he  can  ill  endure  to  see  debased, 
chipped,  and  soiled,  in  the  small  change  of 
religious  and  professional  intercourse;  he  will 
not  accustom  himself  to  the  counterfeit  use  of 
that  word,  brother,  in  ordinary  clerical  inter- 
course and  mere  business  correspondence ;  and 
he  will  wish  always  to  retain  a  reverence  for 
unselfish  and  radiant  womanhood  too  sincere 
and  holy  to  suffer  his  lips  to  be  betrayed  into 
the  unmeaning,  vulgar,  cant  use  of  that  pure 
word — to  me  a  bright  memory  of  youth  become 
a  brighter  hope  of  heaven  ! — sister  ! 

But,  not  to  wander  from  my  theme,  this  rela- 
tion 6f  brother  and  sister,  I  would  say,  often  so 
singularly  complete  and  beautiful,  and  in  its 
very  completeness  and  beauty  ideal  type  almost 
of  a  perfected  society,  is  itself,  in  its  own  worth, 
a  reason  for  its  continuance  after  death.  Its 
very  existence  contains  an  implied  promise  of 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY.  151 

immortality.  It  does  not  look  as  though  it 
were  made  but  for  a  moment.  It  must  be  one 
of  the  eternal  counsels  of  Grod.  For,  if  we  be- 
believe  that  there  is  a  Creator,  then,  I  argue 
most  confidently,  a  God  could  not  have  been 
great  and  good  enough  to  think  of  a  relationshij) 
so  rich  and  beneficent,  and  then  have  called  it 
forth  to  shine  as  a  mere  earthly  iridescence,  and 
after  a  moment  of  divine  delight  in  it  have  let 
it  go  out  in  eternal  darkness.  I  cannot  believe 
that  God  has  created  such  clear,  steady,  shining 
affections  in  man  and  woman  as  mere  will-o'- 
the-wisps  to  mislead  us ;  they  are  implications 
of  immortality — they  contain  in  themselves  the 
Creator's  intimation  of  their  immortality.  There 
is  hardly  a  reason  for  the  persistence  after  death 
of  the  individual  mind,  which  is  not  enhanced 
and  multiplied  many-fold  when  we  consider 
man  as  God  has  created  him  in  the  family ; 
when  we  reflect  that  all  of  the  moral  motives 
which  we  may  reverently  imagine  could  have 
been  in  the  thousrht  of  the  Creator  when  he 
called  human  society  into  existence,  are  reasons 
which  still  more,  and  with  mightier  cogency  of 
love,  might  lead  Him  to  make  that  society  to 


152  DISCOURSES. 

exist   forever,  an   indestructible  and  immortal 
good. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  this  argument 
for  social  immortality  to  be  taken  into  onr 
view.  That  which  is  still  unfinished  in  human 
society  is  a  reason  for  our  trust  in  God's  pur- 
pose to  complete  in  his  own  time  a  redeemed 
and  perfected  society.  It  looks,  that  is  to  say, 
as  though  the  Creator  had  begun  a  good  work 
in  the  formation  and  development  of  human 
society,  which  he  has  not  yet  carried  to  com- 
pletion, and  the  very  fact  that  he  has  begun  it, 
and  done  already  so  much  divine  work  upon  it, 
is  a  strong  presumption  for  the  belief  that  he 
will  never  leave  it  until  he  shall  have  finished 
it.  It  would  not  be  like  God  to  leave  his  work 
half  done.  God's  purpose  cannot  prove  to  be 
but  a  broken  column.  Every  shaft  must  find 
at  last  its  capital  in  the  divine  order  of  the 
architecture  of  the  universe.  Therefore,  society, 
already  so  firmly  founded  and  so  well  begun  in 
these  human  relation shi]3s  and  affections,  shall 
be  completed  in  glory.  This,  expressed  in  a 
few  words,  is  the  great  argument  for  social  im- 
mortality which  will  grow  upon  us  as  we  learn 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY.  153 

from  experience  the  present  incompleteness  of 
God's  own  best  work  in  human  society. 

To  give  this  reasoning  force  and  point,  I  need 
only  remind  you  of  the  many  unmistakable 
signs  that  human  society  is  as  yet  only  begun, 
and  is  very  far  from  being  finished.  The  best 
system  of  society  possible  in  this  world-age  is 
only  rudimentary.  The  outward,  physical  con- 
ditions of  this  world  are  fitted  only  for  an 
embryonic  stage  of  society,  not  for  a  full-winged 
and  full-grown  society.  In  its  idea  and  ap- 
parent intention  human  society  is  something 
evidently  above  this  earth,  and  for  a  larger  than 
this  temporal  life,  but  it  is  still  bound  within 
earthly  conditions.  Its  highest  spiritual  re- 
lationships are  rooted  and  grounded  in  laws  of 
physical  descent.  The  best  society  is  some- 
thing celestial  confined  still  within  a  shell  of 
earthliness.  It  is  useless,  it  is  wicked  to  wish 
even  to  break  prematurely,  before  death,  the 
shell  of  earthly  conditions  and  limitations 
within  which  society  must  be  carefully  matured 
for  the  free,  sinless  life  of  heaven.  Human 
lusts  breaking:  throusfh  the  laws  of  the  social 

order  would  quickly  turn  this  world  into  a  hell. 
7* 


154  DISCOURSES. 

Human  love,  growing  strong  and  pure  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  laws  of  the  social  order,  makes  of 
happy  homes  beginnings  of  heaven.  Genius 
has  sometimes  felt  itself  free  to  soar  above 
common  social  restrictions  into  an  empyrean  of 
its  own ;  but  it  only  repeats  by  its  folly  the 
old  fable  and  melts  its  own  wings.  When  did 
genius  ever  become  stronger,  brighter,  more 
inspired,  by  disregard  of  common  morality  ? 
Byron  singed  his  genius  in  his  own  passion. 
Shelley's  wild  fancy  might  have  become  a 
steadier,  higher  flame,  had  it  been  fed,  in  one 
lifelong  marriage,  upon  the  pure  oil  of  domestic 
truth  and  happiness.  Groethe's  poetic  art  was 
not  made  more  deeply  human  and  more  heavenly 
pure  by  his  selfish  loves  for  w^omen,  and  his 
imagination  needed  for  its  glorification  a  touch 
of  the  sacred  enthusiasm  of  the  poet  who 
lived  "  As  ever  in  my  great  Taskmaster's  eye." 
Possibly  George  Eliot  might  have  come  nearer 
finding  the  missing  truth  in  her  life's  thought 
of  self-renunciation,  had  her  genius  not  been 
drawn  still  farther  into  the  cold  shadows  of  the 
eclipse  of  faith  in  George  Lewes'  home. 

There  are,  then,  conditions  and  necessities  of 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY.  155 

human  society  which  may  at  times  prove 
burdensome  to  the  individual  who  suffers  from 
circumstances,  or  his  own  fateful  mistakes ;  but 
which,  nevertheless,  are  essential  to  the  very 
existence  of  a  growing  organism  of  society  such 
as  that  of  this  earth  is,  and  which  we  must 
quietly  accept,  therefore,  as  for  this  world,  at 
least,  the  wisely  ordained  laws  of  social  life. 
Socialism  in  its  various  forms  is  a  vain  rebellion 
against  them.  But  if  we  do  feel  at  times  their 
pressure  upon  our  individuality,  or  if  in  others 
they  seem  sometimes  to  be  hard  necessities  of 
toil,  or  sacrifice,  or  loneliness,  we  should  re- 
member that  society  is  in  the  narrowness  of  the 
bud  now,  not  in  the  openness  of  the  flower,  and 
some  leaves  may  be  cramped  for  a  season  before 
it  be  full-blown.  There  is  much  in  the  present 
system  of  corporate  existence  which  is  neces- 
sarily limited  and  temporary — much  scaffolding 
of  the  rougher  elements  of  this  world  which 
shall  come  down  when  the  temple  of  God,  held 
in  its  perfectness  in  his  eye  from  the  beginning, 
shall  at  last  be  finished.  As  the  human  body, 
in  which  whole  ages  of  ascending  types  come 
forth  at  last  completed,  is,  nevertheless,  but  the 


156  DISCOURSES. 

temporary  physical  basis  for  the  life  of  an  im- 
mortal soul,  and,  while  serviceable  for  the  first 
few  score  years  of  our  existence,  would  not  do 
at  all  for  the  activities  and  possibilities  of  a 
full-grown  and  perfected  soul ;  so  this  present 
form  of  human  society  is  the  fruition  of  the 
social  instincts  that  have  striven  up  to  man,  and 
answers  wisely  and  well  its  purpose  for  a  sea- 
son; but  it  would  hardly  be  good  enough  to 
last  forever,  and  it  shall  at  length  give  place  to 
the  higher  and  perfected  organization  of  society, 
the  new  Jerusalem,  the  holy  city  coming  down 
from  God  out  of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride 
adorned  for  her  husband.  How  many  present 
imperfections,  how  much  incompleteness  re- 
mains to  be  done  away  !  Enforced  separations 
of  friends ;  great  spaces  of  absence ;  strange 
interruptions  of  happy  companionships — to  say 
nothing  of  lesser  breaks  and  flaws  in  the  social 
happiness  of  even  the  best  men  and  women  ; 
imperfect  sympathies ;  cares  treading  afEections 
down  in  hard,  worn  lives  ;  circumstances  closing 
opportunities ;  sicknesses  shutting  the  outflow  of 
activities ;  necessities  and  responsibilities  with- 
out number  repressing  oft  with  heavy  weight 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY.  157 

the  play  of  spirit ;  these,  and  other  such  limita- 
tions and  incongruities  of  the  present  system  of 
society  as  we  see  it  now  begun  among  us,  and 
ourselves  are  parts  of  its  imperfection,  belong 
all  of  them,  as  we  may  devoutly  hope,  to  its 
present  world-and-time  conditions  only,  not  to 
its  eternal  fruition.  These  earthly  and  tem- 
poral limitations  shall  fall  away,  as  the  sheath 
is  stripped  from  the  ripened  grain,  when  the 
harvest  shall  come  which  is  the  end  of  the 
world.  The  whole  creation  now  travails  in 
pain  together  for  the  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God. 
Then,  when  the  end  shall  come,  when  the  city  of 
God  shall  be  the  final  and  perfected  form  of 
society,  these  former  things  shall  have  passed 
away.  The  physical,  earthly  laws  of  birth  and 
death  shall  have  accomplished  their  work,  and 
be  needed  no  more  for  the  fulness  and  manifold- 
ness  of  life  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The 
long  succession  of  the  generations  shall  cease, 
and  society  become  an  ever-present  companion- 
ship of  the  redeemed.  The  days  of  upbuilding 
which  God  has  carried  on  throuo^h  the  ac^es  in 
which,  as  Jesus  said.  My  Father  worketh  hither- 
to and  I  work,  shall  be  ended,  and  the  day  of 


158  DISCOURSES. 

joyous  rest  shall  begin.  The  Sabbath  of  society 
shall  come  at  last.  So  Jesus  thought  of  the 
perfect  society,  complete  in  the  glory  of  the 
angels,  when  he  answered  the  Sadducee's  puz- 
zling question  concerning  that  poor,  overmuch 
married  woman.  They  could  form  only  a  low, 
w^orldly  conception  of  what  society  may  grow 
to  be.  They  could  only  project  the  temporary- 
conditions  of  life  in  this  world  into  the  next,  as 
they  thought  of  the  hereafter.  So  they  were 
perplexed  to  imagine  how  human  society  could 
pass  on  into  immortality,  and  they  thought  by 
their  shrewd  difficulty  to  puzzle  the  very  Christ ! 
But  with  a  divine  iusit^ht  into  the  abidino^  reali- 
ties  beneath  passing  forms  of  things,  Jesus 
brushed  away  their  vain  imaginations  with  a 
single  word  of  truth :  "  For  in  the  resurrection, 
they  neither  marry,  nor  are  given  in  marriage, 
but  are  as  the  angels  of  God  in  heaven."  These 
familiar  forms  of  social  life  are  temporal;  but 
the  substance — the  reality  which  w^e  carry 
hence  with  us  in  our  hearts — is  eternal.  Tlie 
outward  shall  pass  away,  but  the  inward  truth 
of  love  shall  abide  forever.  For  in  the  resur- 
rection— when  this  world-age,  that  is,  shall  be 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY.  159 

over,  and  the  fruition  of  all  its  struggle  of  life 
upwards  shall  appear — they  shall  neither  marry, 
nor  be  given  in  marriage.  Whatever  in  human 
relationships  and  affections  was  only  of  the 
earth  earthy  shall  pass  away,  but  love  shall 
abide — love  pure  and  true,  radiant  and  change- 
less ;  for  they  shall  be  as  the  angels  of  God  in 
heaven. 

My  thought  has  skirted  but  the  shores  and 
shallows  of  a  boundless  hope.  The  horizon  of 
it  lies  ever  beyond  us,  and  as  in  the  light  of  set- 
ting suns.  But  enough  may  have  been  suggest- 
ed to  awaken  in  some  hearts  afresh  the  joy  of  this 
great  hope.  This  whole  argument  for  a  com- 
plete and  blessed  social  immortality  rests  in  the 
last  analysis  upon  this  simplest  yet  profound- 
est  of  truths  that  God  has  made  everything  in 
this  world  and  its  history  to  grow  until  his  ow^n 
harvest  time ;  a  truth  this  to  be  found  alike,  in 
some  form  of  it,  in  all  scientific  study  of  the 
nature  of  things,  and  hidden,  also,  in  the  very 
heart  of  Scripture.  Human  society  is  only  in 
the  germ  now;  hereafter  shall  God  gather  the 
ripe  fruit  of  this  tree  of  life  for  his  heaven. 

Go  then   to  your  firesides,  and,  as  you  take 


l6o  DISCOURSES. 

your  children  in  your  arms,  in  the  delight  of 
their  fresh  lives  rejoice  in  the  hope  of  the  im- 
mortality of  the  household  love  and  joy  ;  for  of 
such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Take  this 
blessed  hope  with  you  into  the  desolate  home — 
the  rooms,  so  emj^ty  now,  where  everything  sug- 
gests a  presence  that  never  comes  again — keep 
this  hope  singing  in  your  heart  of  hearts  as  you 
still  dwell  for  a  little  while  amid  the  many  fad- 
ing things  with  which  but  yesterday  a  vanished 
love  was  clothed ;  there  too  in  the  deserted 
home,  faith  may  hear  the  angel  say,  "  He  is  not 
here,  for  he  is  risen  !  "  Cherish  this  blessed  truth 
which  pervades  with  its  sweet  comfort  all  God's 
word  of  promise,  and  is  near  to  nature's  heart, 
that  society  is  immortal,  and  the  holy  city 
shall  come  down  from  God  out  of  heaven.  Ye 
are  come  unto  Mount  Zion,  and  unto  the  city  of 
the  living  God,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  and 
to  an  innumerable  company  of  angels. 

That  bright,  restful  world-future  we  do  not 
and  need  not  envy,  for  our  work  may  hasten  the 
coming  of  that  day,  and  by  the  grace  of  God  we 
are  the  heirs  of  it ;  and  the  I'edeemed  of  the  Lord 
from  all  the  ages  past  wait  for  us,  as  we  shall 


SOCIAL  IMMORTALITY.  i6l 

Avait  also  for  others  after  us,  until  tbat  day; 
"  that  they  " — as  an  Apostle  said  with  a  deep, 
touching  sense  of  the  mutual  dependence  of 
God's  people  in  all  the  generations,  and  their 
final  completeness  in  the  society  of  the  finishcnl 
and  perfect  kingdom  of  God, — "  that  they  with- 
out us  should  not  be  made  perfect." 


APPENDIX. 


DiscoTTRSE  I. — Note  1,  p.  26. 

This  hopeful  opinion  with  regard  to  present  theo- 
lo<>ical  toleration  was  expressed  before  the  recent  un- 
usual proceeding  in  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland  had 
deprived  Prof.  Robertson  Smith  of  his  professorship. 
It  should  be  remembered  that  the  Free  Church  by  this 
exceptional  action  has  rendered  no  direct  decision 
against  his  teaching,  or  the  right  of  a  clergyman  within 
its  pale  to  pursue  critical  studies  of  the  literary  history 
of  the  Bible.  It  cannot  be  too  strongly  urged  that  a 
real  faith  in  God's  Word  can  be  afraid  of  no  science. 
On  the  contrary,  the  prevalence  of  unhistorical  as  well 
as  of  extreme  rationalistic  views  of  the  Bible,  and  the 
increasing  circulation  among  the  people  of  the  assump- 
tions of  destructive  critics  who  proceed  from  a  denial 
of  the  supernatural  (as  in  the  "  Bible  for  Learners  ")  lay 
a  duty  upon  evangelical  churches  of  encouraging  among 


1 64  APPENDIX. 

their  ministry  the  science  of  historical  and  Biblical 
criticism.  Scholars  of  evangelical  faith  should  be 
beforehand  in  sifting  out  the  truth  from  these  new 
studies,  and  in  bringing  the  wheat  from  these  fresh 
fields  of  investigation  to  the  people.  Protestant  faith, 
surely,  cannot  be  saved  by  any  protective  policy  of 
ignorance ;  and  any  appeal  in  these  high  matters  to 
popular  prejudice  or  ecclesiastical  fears  is  unworthy 
the  Protestant  Church.  Should  a  conflict  similar  to 
that  now  going  on  in  the  Pree  Church  of  Scotland 
ever  arise  in  our  own  land,  it  is  devoutly  to  be  hoped 
that  impossible,  because  utterly  unhistorical,  theories 
of  inspiration  may  not  betray  any  church  into  the 
suicidal  policy  of  laying  hands  of  ecclesiastical  violence 
upon  the  sincere  and  candid  Biblical  'scholarship  %vhich 
in  its  own  better  way  finds  the  authority  and  power  of 
God  in  the  Scriptures.  The  beginnings  of  intolerance 
toward  more  scientific  views  of  revelation  and  inspira- 
tion should  be  discouraged  everywhere  by  all  good  men 
who  believe  that  the  Word  of  God  is  able  to  stand  in 
its  own  commanding  truth,  and  that  it  does  not  need 
to  be  propped  up  by  any  mechanical  devices  of  human 
invention.  Free  and  thoughtful  discussions,  not  eccle- 
siastical bulls,  are  what  the  interests  of  faith  and  the 
truth  of  God's  Word  demand  of  theological  leaders  at 
the  present  time. 


APPENDIX.  165 

DiSCOTIRSE   II. — NOTK   2,   p.    50. 

I  do  not  forget  that  not  a  few  sentiments  of  hnman- 
ity  and  fraternity  may  be  gathered  from  classic  writers, 
particularly  fi-om  tlie  later  Stoics,  sucli  as  Mr.  Lecky 
in  his  "  History  of  European  Morals  "  has  taken  pains 
to  collect ;  the  darker  side,  however,  of  the  history  of 
the  decaying  empires  of  the  Old  World  makes  itself 
painfully  felt.  ISleander  in  one  of  his  minor,  and  I  be- 
1  ieve  untranslated  writings  ("  "Wissenschaf  tliche  Abhand- 
lungen,"  s.  140  f.),  M'ith  his  usual  jDrofound  historical 
analysis,  has  probed  to  the  quick  the  moral  incom- 
petency of  the  ancient  social  philosophy.  The  pre- 
Christian  ethics  were  powerless  to  create,  and  even  to 
conceive  of,  the  one  true  society,  the  real  brotherhood 
of  man.  In  this  essay  on  the  "  Relation  of  Hellenic  to 
Christian  Ethics,"  Keander  quotes  the  remarkable  saying 
of  Zeno,  that  there  shall  be  one  life  and  one  world,  as 
one  flock  led  by  a  common  law ;  but  ho  shows  that 
antiquity  possessed  no  power  to  realize  this  conception, 
and  that  the  idea  itself,  moreover,  was  defective  and 
unrealizable.  It  resembles  an  unclear,  communistic 
idea  of  society,  a  tendency  to  reduce  humanity  to  an 
inorganic  mass,  ending  in  the  dissolution  rather  than 
the  fulfilling  of  the  natural  differences  and  original 
orderings  of  society  (Ibid.,  p.  152).  IS^eander  concludes 
this  comprehensive  survey  of  the  ethical  course  of 
antiquity  with  these  weighty  words  upon  Xeoplatou- 


1 66  APPENDIX. 

ism :  "  So  we  see  the  development  of  ancient  ethics,  in 
opposition  to  the  principle  of  a  divine  humanity  to  be 
realized  in  all,  which  has  been  brought  by  Christ  into 
the  world,  close  with  that  egotistic,  aristocratic,  parti- 
cularism."    (Ibid.,  p.  214V 

For  a  full  substantiation  of  the  statement  made 
above,  I  need  only  refer,  among  recent  books,  to  Uhl- 
horn's  "  Conflict  of  Christianity  and  Heathenism." 

DiscouESE  n. — Note  3,  p.  56. 

From  an  exalted  ethical  conception  of  the  Divine 
Reality,  large  and  illumined  views  open  out  in  every 
direction  through  our  theology.  To  gain  it  is  therefore 
the  first  duty  of  the  Biblical  theologian ;  and  if  theology 
is  surveyed  from  any  lower  point  of  view,  all  the  doc- 
trines will  be  thrown  out  of  their  true  relations  and 
right  adjustment.  Freqi^ent  points  of  confusion  and 
contradiction  in  our  doctrinal  lines  indicate  that  we 
have  started  them  from  some  too  low,  partial,  or  un- 
moral idea  of  God.  Could  we  gain  a  perfect  moral 
apprehension  of  God,  such  as  the  sinless  Christ  pos- 
sessed, all  doubt  and  perplexity  would  disaj)pear  from 
our  thought  of  His  ways  and  vi^orks. 

The  ethical,  rather  than  the  metaphysical,  being  of 
God,  it  should  ever  be  remembered,  is  the  subject  of 
revelation,  as  the  Bible  is  the  book  of  religion  rather 
than  a  system  of  philosophy.     A  real  knowledge  of  the 


APPENDIX.  167 

true  God  can  be  gained  only  through  a  true  life,  as 
Jesus  (Jn.  xvii.  3.)  identifies  knowledge  of  the  only 
true  God  and  eternal  life.     So,  also,  1st  Jn.  v.  20. 

The  philosophical  advantages  of  an  ethical  method 
of  apprehending  the  idea  of  God  are  such  as  these ; 
viz.,  1.  It  lifts  thought  out  of  merely  metaphysical 
difficulties  and  subtleties.  God  as  love  is  a  positively 
known  God,  however  finite  and  inadequate  may  be  our 
thought  of  him.  Christian  theology  does  not  have 
to  do  with  a  blank  Absolute,  or  negative  Infinite,  or 
metaphysical  Indifference,  but  with  the  living  God,  the 
Father  of  spirits,  w^ho  has  revealed  himself  in  his  es- 
sential reality  as  love.  2.  It  overcomes  deism  while  it 
saves  the  truth  at  the  heart  of  pantheism.  The  ethical 
conception  of  God  is  the  reconciliation  both  of  the  im- 
manence and  the  transcendence  of  God.  God  as  the 
supreme  Moral  Power  must  be  both  above  and  in  his 
creation.  His  relation  to  the  created  universe  is 
primarily  ethical ;  and  the  physical  and  metaphysical 
nature  of  things,  and  their  relation  to  the  divine  Will, 
are  to  be  studied  and  interpreted  in  Christian  theology 
under  this  higher  and  primary  ethical  relation  of  the 
Creator  to  his  works.  Love  is  at  the  heart  of  things, 
as  it  is  the  essential  nature  of  God.  3.  From  this 
ethical  method  we  gain  a  consistent  conception  of  God's 
nnchangeableness  in  relation  to  a  changing  world. 
Immutability  is  a  moral  predicate  of  God.  lie  is  a  con- 
stant providence,  a  continuous  thoughtfulness,  over  us 


1 68  APPENDIX. 

and  through  history.  Historical  sameness  in  the  divine 
conduct  of  the  world  might  be  moral  mutability.  On 
this  subject  especially  see  Dorner,  "  Christliche  Glau- 
benslehre."  4.  This  ethical  conception  of  the  nature  of 
God  is  indispensable  to  any  Biblical  view  of  the  person 
and  work  of  Christ  (as  shown  in  the  third  discourse).  5. 
In  the  light  of  the  moral  revelation  of  the  divine  glory 
we  can  read  most  intelligibly  the  Scriptural  intimations 
of  the  triune  nature  of  the  Godhead.  The  words  used 
in  the  Bible,  the  Father,  the  Son,  imply  real  distinc- 
tions, an  ontological  Trinity ;  but  the  revelation  of  the 
unity  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  which  is  vouchsafed 
in  the  Bible,  presents  it  predominantly  in  an  ethical 
light  for  our  present  thought  of  it.  God  as  love  is 
blessed  forever  in  the  communion  of  his  own  triune 
Being.  God  is  not  revealed  to  us  as  a  blank  unit,  but 
as  a  living  unity,  possessing  divine  society  in  himself, 
and  morally  and  spiritually  complete  in  his  own  mani- 
foldness  of  being.  The  creation,  thus,  is  in  no  sense 
necessary  to  the  perfectness  of  the  triune  God  over  all 
blessed  forever.  Thus,  as  a  relation  in  love,  Jesus, 
"  the  Son  of  his  love,"  speaks  of  his  own  oneness  with 
the  Father.  Jn.  xvii.  21,  24.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  is  more  accessible  to  our  approach  from  this 
moral  apprehension  of  it  than  it  is  from  the  meta- 
physical side.  "We  are  obliged,  however,  to  distinguish 
in  tliought  what  may  be  one  and  inseparable  in  God 
and  the  nature  of  things ;  vi2.,  the  moral  and  the  real, 


APPENDIX.  169 

the  reasonable  and  the  actual,  the  ethical  and  the  onto- 
logical.  It  is  one  of  the  profoundest  ideas  of  modern 
German  thought  that  "  the  ethical  has  in  it,  also,  some- 
thing ontological. 

DiscoTJESE  m. — Note  4,  p.  79. 

The  following  note  is  designed  to  indicate  more 
fully  the  relations  of  the  view  of  the  atonement  given 
above  to  other  theories  of  it,  and  also  to  suggest  certain 
directions  in  which  it  may  be  profitably  thought  out. 

The  form  of  our  conception  of  Christ's  work  depends 
ultimately  upon  our  idea  of  God.  If  the  divine  Will 
be  made  the  one-sided  centre  of  theology,  as  is  fre- 
quently the  case  in  Calvinistic  discussions,  then  the 
whole  conception  of  the  atonement  will  be  thrown  out 
of  moral  adjustment,  and  at  more  than  one  point  it  will 
cause  friction  with  the  moral  sentiments.  The  centre 
and  radiating  point  of  our  reasonings  concerning  re- 
demption should  be  a  thoroughly  spiritual  and  ethical 
belief  in  God  as  love  in  its  comprehensive  integrit}'. 
Starting  from  this  idea  of  God,  and  recognizing  God's 
eternal  will  of  reconciliation  as  grounded  in  his  ethical 
perfectness  as  love,  we  have  then  to  view  the  incarna- 
tion and  atoning  work  of  Christ  as  the  necessary  out- 
going and  satisfaction  of  God's  own  moral  being  in 
forgiving  sinners  ;  and  then  to  contemplate  the  fact  of 
Kedemption  in    its  various  historical  relations  to  law, 


1 70  APPENDIX. 

sacrifice,  moral  government,  and  the  power  of  sin. 
We  need  not  reject  utterly  other  partial  views,  and 
lower  analogies  which  may  serve  to  illustrate  different 
aspects  of  redemption ;  but  frcm  our  higher  ethical 
conception  we  should  work  down  among  these  imperfect 
views,  and  along  these  lower  lines,  correcting  what  is  not 
purely  spiritual  in  them,  and  bringing  their  partial  truths 
into  harmony  with  the  central  idea  of  love.  The  rela- 
tions of  law,  government,  honor,  covenant,  public  justice, 
etc.,  express  real  relations  of  the  highest  personal  Love 
to  the  universe ;  and  theories  of  atonement  based  upon 
them  (as  the  chivalric,  or  Anselm's,  the  governmental, 
the  juridical,  the  federal,  etc.)  correspond,  each  and 
all,  to  something  true  in  God  or  man  ;  but  they  rest 
upon  partial  and  secondary  truths,  and  should  be  rec- 
ognized and  used  as  derivative  and  secondary  concep- 
tions of  the  original  and  comprehensive  truth  that  God 
so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son. 
The  personal  (ethical)  relation  of  God  to  man  is  before 
the  governmental ;  it  is  first  in  the  order  of  time  and  of 
thought ;  and,  above  all  dispensations  of  covenant  and 
law,  it  remains  the  primary  and  supreme  relation  of 
man  to  the  Father  of  spirits.  Before  the  law  was 
given,  Adam  was  born  a  living  soul,  and  man  is  first 
and  in  his  essential  moral  being  a  son  of  God.  The 
vicarious  work  of  the  second  Adam  satisfies  and  can 
harmonize  all  other  necessities,  all  historic  relations  of 
God  to  the  world,  because  it  is  the  completion  and  per- 


APPENDIX. 


171 


feet  moral  satisfaction  of  this  first,  personal  relation  of 
the  Father  to  the  son  that  was  lost  and  is  found. 

The  necessity  of  the  atonement,  according  to  this  view 
of  it,  lies  in  the  moral  fact  that  God  is  not,  and  as  per- 
fect Love  cannot  be,  eternally  reconciled  to  sin  in  him- 
self, in  the  quiet  depths  of  his  own  pure  being,  without 
some  activity  of  righteous  Love  in  view  of  sin ; — re- 
conciliation is  not  a  mere  state,  if  one  may  so  speak,  of 
the  divine  consciousness,  but  it  is  the  act  of  an  out- 
going God  toward  the  sinner.  It  will  be  seen,  there- 
fore, that  our  idea  of  the  atonement,  though  starting 
from  a  supreme  moral  thought  of  God,  is  not  a  merely 
subjective  view  of  it.  Sin  has  become  objective  in  a 
history  of  wrong-doing — objective,  too,  both  as  the  fact 
of  guilt,  and  as  the  power  of  evil  in  the  world.  But, 
beginning  as  we  do  with  the  purely  moral,  primary  per- 
sonal relation  of  God  to  man,  we  can  then  hope  to 
survey  in  their  true  light,  from  this  centre  and  height, 
the  various  historical  relations  and  transactions  of  God 
toward  man,  and  of  man  toward  God,  such  as  law, 
revelation,  promise,  disobedience,  sin,  penitence,  rejec- 
tion of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  view  of  the  Atonement  which  I  have  suggested, 
may  readily  be  worked  out  critically  in  reference  to 
prevalent  theories  of  it.  Thus,  the  older  juridical  and 
penal  theories  begin  wdtli  a  genuine  idea  of  righteous- 
ness, and  the  demands  of  strict  justice,  but  they  fail  to 
recognize  with  clear  ethical  insight  the  essential  oneness 


172 


APPENDIX. 


of  all  moral  predicates  in  the  divine  nature,  and  hence 
their  necessary  unity  in  all  revelation  or  activity  of 
God  in  history ;  and  they  proceed,  accordingly,  to  con- 
ceive of  the  nature  of  Christ's  work  too  much  under 
the  domination  of  some  one  divine  attribute,  or  in  view 
of  the  demands  of  some  special  moral  relation  of  God 
to  the  universe,  making  the  requirements  of  justice,  or 
law,  or  the  divine  veracity,  or  the  terms  of  a  supposed 
covenant,  their  rule  and  measuring-rod  for  the  work  of 
perfect  Love  in  forgiving  sin ;  and  hence  these  theories 
run  into  legalism,  or  artificial  imputation,  or  even  into 
a  quantitative  substitution  of  Christ's  suffering  for  the 
penalty  of  sin  ;  and  they  fail  in  proportion  to  be  under- 
stood by  the  simple  Christian  conscience,  or  to  carry 
the  full  consent  of  Christian  hearts. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  I^ew  England,  or  govern- 
mental theory  of  the  Atonement,  reacting  from  these 
artificialities  of  the  older  theology,  begins  with  certain 
well  defined  moral  axioms  rather  than  from  a  deep 
ethical  consciousness  of  grace ;  and  it  proceeds  by  a 
dialectic  method  rather  than  through  spiritual  insight, 
to  analyze  the  nature  of  the  Godhead  into  different 
species  of  benevolence  and  justice,  and  to  construct  a 
series  of  moral  plausibilities  concerning  the  divine 
government  of  the  world,  and  the  purposes  secured 
under  it  by  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  which  are  logically 
connected  and  satisfactory  to  any  one  who  does  not 
venture  to  question  its  definitions,  or  whose   spiritual 


APPENDIX. 


173 


thirst  for  reality  in  theology  does  not  lead  him  beyond 
its  phraseology  to  search  for  the  fountains  of  moral 
truth  and  spiritual  life.  As  the  governmental  theory 
does  not  begin  far  enough  back,  so  it  does  not  end  in 
the  comprehension  and  fullness  of  all  other  theories  of 
Atonement,  as  we  may  be  sure  the  true  and  final 
philosophy  of  it  will  do  ;  but  we  find  that  it  divides 
farther  down  into  two  different  modes  of  thought,  one 
the  moral  influence  theory,  the  other  a  tendency  to  re- 
turn toward  older  theories  in  the  feeling  that  some 
deeper,  spiritual  truth  of  Christ  has  been  lost.  The 
governmental  theory,  unless  we  take  its  truth  up  into 
some  larger  spiritual  thought  of  God,  is  in  danger  of 
leaving  for  us  a  reconciliation  of  policy,  rather  than 
from  the  heart  of  God. 

A  few  words  may  need  to  be  added  to  prevent  mis- 
understanding of  the  view  of  the  necessity  of  suffering 
in  forgiveness  which  has  been  outlined  merely  in  the 
sermon  upon  this  subject.  1.  With  regard  to  the 
person  of  Christ,  and  his  qualification  for  the  work  of 
reconciliation,  it  should  be  noticed  that  both  natures, 
and  their  union  in  Him,  are  as  necessary  upon  this 
view  as  in  any  other  theory  of  his  atoning  sufferings. 
Both  the  vicarious  principle  of  love  in  God,  and  the 
capacity  in  human  nature  for  vicarious  representa- 
tion, are  met  in  the  person  of  Christ ;  so  that  in  his 
sufferings  for  sin  there  may  be  the  perfect  recognition 
on  the  part  of  hmnanity  of  the  righteousness  of  love 


174  APPENDIX. 

which  cannot  forgive  without  at  the  same  time  con- 
demning sin  in  sorrow  for  it,  as  well  as  the  perfect  out- 
going and  manifestation  on  the  part  of  God  of  his 
whole  feeling  toward  sin  in  Christ  upon  the  cross. 

The  person  of  Christ  is  seen  to  be  necessary  in  still 
another  light,  when  we  ask  the  question,  why  could  not 
God's  eternal  will  of  forgiveness  through  suffering  have 
been  carried  out  without  the  incarnation  and  death  of 
Christ  ?  Wliy  could  not  the  Father,  taking  the  sin  of 
the  world  to  his  own  heart,  out  of  his  own  pure  divine- 
ness  have  forgiven  it  ?  We  have  seen  that  the 
righteousness  of  love  is  a  moral  necessity  of  suffering 
for  sin  in  forgiving  it.  But  the  perf ectness  of  God's 
being  precludes  the  thought  of  God's  suffering  in  Him- 
self ;  He  cannot  be  conceived  as  suffering  in  his  own 
pure  divineness,  but  only  in  some  outgoing  from  him- 
self, in  some  vicarious  entering  into  the  life  of  the 
world,  and  its  sin  and  shame.  The  Incarnation,  which 
independently  of  sin  we  hold  to  be  the  consummation  of 
creative  love,  becomes  in  view  of  sin  the  possible  mode 
of  God's  participation  in  the  shame  and  the  pain  of  our 
human  history.  God  in  Himself  is  God  over  all 
blessed  forever ;  God  going  out  of  Himself  in  the  form 
of  man  becomes  the  suffering  Godman,  There  is  an 
intimation  of  this  twofold  truth,  of  this  divine  unity 
of  blessedness  and  sorrow,  even  in  vicarious  human 
suffering  ;  for  there  is  with  those  Christlike  ones  who 
suffer  for  the  sins  of  others  a  double  consciousness — a 


APPENDIX.  175 

heart  at  peace  in  God,  secure  and  restful  in  its  own 
gracious  goodness,  beneath  the  sympathy  and  behind 
the  suffering  of  the  heart  going  forth  in  compassion  and 
tears  for  others.  Indeed,  this  deeper  consciousness  of 
good,  this  reserved  power  of  blessedness,  is  necessary 
to  genuine  vicarious  suffering  for  others  ;  our  sympathy 
never  would  be  unselfish  and  life-giving  to  others, 
were  there  not  this  higher  consciousness  of  love,  restful 
in  its  own  felicity,  behind  it.  So  the  blessedness  of 
the  eternal  Father  is  the  peace  and  security  of  Heaven 
above  the  darkness  and  the  passion  of  the  Cross ! 

The  sufferings  of  Christ,  I  hold,  therefore,  are  not 
merely  modes  of  manifestation  of  God's  feeling  toward 
sin — an  exhibition  on  earth  of  "  a  superhistorical  pro- 
cess in  God  himself."  For  "  the  reality  of  reconcilia- 
tion" they  are  necessary.  The  incarnation  is  the 
necessary  and  real  form  of  divine  suffering  for  sin. 
In  union  with  man,  in  the  one  Person  of  the  Godman, 
the  efficacious  suffering  of  Love  for  sin  is  both  possible 
and  actual.  Christ's  passion  is  thus  more  than  a  mani- 
festation, it  is  a  realization  of  the  love  of  God  in  im- 
mediate, organic  relation  to  man's  life  of  sin  in  the 
world.  Our  statements  will  thus  be  seen  to  avoid 
entirely  the  old  error  of  patripassionism. 

In  this  view  of  the  atonement  the  extent  of  it  is 
determined,  not  by  any  arbitrary  election,  or  secret 
will  of  God,  but  by  God's  eternal  will  of  redemption, 
which  is  grounded  in  his  essential  nature  of  Love,  and 


176  APPENDIX. 

realized  in  Christ's  assumption  of  the  very  nature  of 
man.  Its  extent  can  be  limited,  then,  only  by  the 
breadth  and  height  of  God's  love  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  last  and  lowest  limit,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the 
nature  which  the  Son  of  man  assumed.  Any  other 
limitation  would  make  Christ  cease  to  be  the  repre- 
sentative and  head  of  our  race,  and  would  contradict 
our  idea  of  God. 

One  more  remark  is  in  point.  A  distinguishing 
merit  of  this  endeavor  to  conceive  of  the  work  of 
Christ  in  its  primary  and  supreme  relation  to  Love, 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  circumstance  that  it  enhances 
our  sense  of  the  higher  naturalness  of  Christ's  life  and 
sufferings.  They  were  not  imposed,  that  is,  by  mere 
Will,  by  an  arbitrary  decree ;  they  were  not  invented 
by  divine  Wisdom  as  an  after-thought  of  mercy  for  the 
propitiation  of  justice.  They  grew  spontaneously,  as  it 
were,  out  of  the  very  nature  of  God,  and  came  to 
Christ  in  the  natural  working  out  of  his  mission  from 
the  Father.  This  higher  moral  natm-alness  both  of  the 
unique  Person  and  the  unique  work  of  the  Christ,  is 
one  of  the  most  fruitful  and  grandest  conceptions  of 
modern  theology. 

DiscouKSE  m. — Note  5,  p.  80. 

It  did  not  come  within  the  original  plan  of  these 
discourses  to  follow  out  this  view  of  the  Gospel  of  for- 


APPENDIX.  177 

giveness  in  its  relation  to  morality  and  influence  upon 
character.  Justification,  or  love's  free  welcome  of  the 
sinner  through  Christ,  is  the  first  condition  of  a  new, 
quickened  moral  life.  Orthodox  theology  has  much 
that  is  fresh  and  inspiriting  to  say  of  the  creative 
power  of  manhood  which  proceeds  from  the  Christ. 
The  source  and  life  of  morality  is  contained  in  the 
truth  which  St.  John  felt, — We  love  him  because  he 
first  loved  us.  God  is  before  us  in  om-  own  virtue,  and 
in  the  growth  of  character,  as  He  is  before  us  in  our 
thought  of  him,  and  in  all  our  life.  True  morality  is 
applied  religion,  and  there  can  be  no  human  goodness 
without  something  from  God  in  it.  Evangelical  faith 
secures,  thus,  and  vitalizes  every  moral  instinct.  But 
the  consideration  of  this  fruitful  subject  would  itself 
require  a  volume. 

DiscouKSE  IV. — Note  6,  p.  91. 

Among  those  who  advocate  the  possibility  of  con- 
version after  death  and  before  the  last  judgment, 
Rothe  is  careful  to  insist  that  "  even  at  best  the  result 
of  conversion  in  the  kingdom  of  the  dead  ....  would 
remain  far  behind  the  perfected  condition  of  those  who 
during  this  life  in  the  senses,  and  not  first,  indeed, 
upon  the  death-bed,  have  turned  themselves  to  the 
Redeemer."  ("  Tlieo.  Ethik,"  §  796).  This  conclusion 
Rothe  reaches  from  his  view  of  the  relation  of  the 


178  APPENDIX. 

spirit,  as  a  transforming  and  appropriating  power,  to- 
ward outward  nature;  he  holds  that,  relatively,  the 
earlier  the  conversion,  the  richer  the  fullness  of  spiritual 
life  that  may  ensue. 

DiscouKSE  V. — Note  7,  p.  123. 

The  Westminster  Confession  says  :  "  The  souls  of  the, 
righteous,  being  then  (immediately  after  death)  made 
perfect  in  holiness,  are  received  into  the  highest 
heavens,  ....  and  the  soids  of  the  wicked  are  cast 
into  Hell  ....  Besides  these  two  places  for  souls 
separated  from  their  bodies,  the  Scripture  acknowl- 
edgeth  none."  (Chap,  xxiii.)  But,  as  the  same  Con- 
fession places  above  itself  the  Word  of  God,  it  may  be 
deemed  permissible  to  quote  against  this  positive 
declaration  the  following  Scriptures :  Job  xxxviii.  17. 
Gen.  xxxvii.  35,  xlii.  38,  xliv.  29,  31.  Ps.  xvi.  9,  10, 
xviii.  5,  xlix.  15,  Ixxxviii.  12,  Ixxxix.  48,  Ixiii.  9.  Ez. 
xxxii.  17-32.  (See  Oehler,  "  Theo.  d.  A.  T.,"  1,  §  259. 
Also  art.  "  Hades  "  in  "  Herzog's  Encyclop.")  Beside 
these  texts  from  the  Old  Testament  should  be  placed 
the  passages  from  the  New  Testament  given  in  the  fol- 
lowing note.  It  should  be  remembered  that  according 
to  the  New  Testament  the  souls  of  Dives,  Lazarus,  and 
Jesus,  after  death  are  represented  as  going  to  Hades. 


APPENDIX.  179 

DiscouKSE  V. — Note  8,  p.  128. 

The  Biblical  elements  of  this  doctrine  may  be  briefly 
summarized  as  follows  : 

I.  Those  words  of  Jesus  which  refer  to  a  time  or 
state  of  existence  between  death  and  the  last  judg- 
ment; viz.,  the  promise  to  the  thief  upon  the  cross, 
Luke  xxiii.  43  ;  and  the  parable  of  the  rich  man  and 
Lazarus,  Luke  xvi.  19-31.  Jesus  used  a  word  which 
the  thief,  with  his  Jewish  ideas,  could  understand, 
Paradise,  The  promise  implied  that  the  crucified 
Messiah  would  be  at  once  after  death  present,  rec- 
ognized, and  influential  among  the  departed.  It  is 
thus  an  anticipation  of  the  Apostolic  teaching  of  the 
descent  into  Hades,  1st  Peter  iii.  18-19.  The  second 
passage  cited  (the  parable  of  Lazarus)  contains  the  fol- 
lowing truths  :  1.  A  retributive  state  begms  after  death. 
Each  character  of  the  parable  begins  in  Hades  to  re- 
ceive according  to  his  moral  capacity  and  deserts.  2. 
The  dead  are  not  yet  finally  separated  and  judged. 
They  exist  each  in  his  own  place  and  manner  in  the 
same  world  of  the  dead.  There  is  conversation  between 
Abraham  and  the  rich  man.  3.  The  good  can  do 
nothing  to  change  the  condition  of  the  bad.  The  bad 
can  do  nothing  to  hurt  the  good.  Beside  all  this  (or, 
"  La  all  these  things  ")  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed  between 
them ;  for  good  or  evil  they  camiot  go  to  one  another. 
Now  is   our   time   for   Christian   influence,  for    "  the 


l8o  APPENDIX. 

night  cometli,  when  no  man  can  work."  4.  l^othing  is 
taught  clearlj  concerning  the  effects  of  his  torments 
upon  Dives,  and  Jesus  lets  the  curtain  fall  over  his 
final  state.  The  parable  leaves  him  in  suffering  with- 
out possibility  of  help  from  Lazarus  or  Abraham.  It 
does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  the  lesson  which 
Jesus. was  intent  upon  impressing,  to  give  any  informa- 
tion as  to  whether  or  not  a  better  mind  might  begin  to 
be  wrought  in  Dives  through  his  punitive  sufferings,  or 
whether  the  gulf,  unpassable  to  hmnan  pity,  could 
ever  be  crossed  by  the  divine  mercy.  The  parable 
teaches  directly  nothing  at  all  upon  these  points,  and 
would  not  be  inconsistent  with  any  revelation  which 
might  be  made  concerning  the  last  judgment.  We 
must  take  the  parable  for  the  obvious  truths  which  are 
its  first  intention.  5.  It  teaches  that  character  may  be- 
come so  determined  at  a  lower  stage  of  revelation  as  to 
render  it  morally  certain  that  it  would  not  change 
under  a  higher  revelation  (v.  31). 

II.  The  apostolic  teaching  of  the  descent  into  Hades. 
1st  Peter,  iii.  18-22,  iv.  6.  The  weight  of  modern  inter- 
pretation is  on  the  side  of  taking  these  words  to  mean 
exactly  what  they  seem  to  say.  The  traditional  ortho- 
dox interpretation  either  leaves  them  unexplained,  or 
refers  them  allegorically  to  the  deepest  sufferings  in 
sphit  of  the  Messiah,  or  resorts  to  various  artificialities 
of  treatment ;  as  Calvin  regards  Christ's  preaching  to 
the  spirits  in  prison  as  addressed  to  the  souls  of  the 


APPENDIX.  I8i 

pious  dead  of  tlie  Old  Testament,  and  coolly  justifies 
his  grammatical  liberty  with  the  text  by  saying  that 
the  apostles  often  substituted  one  case  for  another ! 
This  passage,  if  taken  to  mean  what  the  words  say, 
yields  the  following  teaching :  1.  Christ  really  went  to 
the  place  of  departed  spirits.  2.  He  went  in  his 
quickened  spiritual  life  to  the  dead.  The  expression, 
quickened,  or  made  alive  in  spirit,  refers  here  as  else- 
where to  the  life  of  the  resurrection.  In  that  form  or 
mode  of  being  in  which  after  death  he  was  made  alive 
in  the  spirit,  Christ  went  and  preached  to  a  class,  at 
least,  of  the  dead.  3.  This  advent  of  the  crucified 
Christ  in  Hades  was  not  a  still  deeper  humiliation,  but 
the  first  moment  of  his  exaltation,  the  beginning  of  the 
glory  of  the  resurrection.  It  was  the  Lord  who  had 
conquered  death,  and  had  begun  to  be  made  alive  ac- 
cording to  the  power  of  the  resurrection,  who  appeared 
in  Hades.  It  is  noticeable  that  in  the  mind  of  the 
Apostle  the  going  to  preach  to  the  spirits  in  prison  is 
directly  associated  with  the  resurrection,  and  ascent 
into  heaven  (v.  22),  as  though  these  were  all  parts  of 
one  and  the  same  quickened  life.  The  hour  of  Christ's 
advent  among  the  dead  is  not  determined  by  the  text ; 
the  general  opinion  has  been  that  it  took  place  before 
the  resurrection  (so  Alf ord,  in  loco) ;  but  the  older 
Lutheran  theologians  placed  it  "  after  his  quickening  in 
the  time  between  that  and  his  going  forth  from  the 
tomb  "  (Huther,  in  "  Meyer's  Com."  in  loco).   It  evidently 


1 82  APPENDIX. 

was  before  the  manifested  resurrection  on  the  morning 
of  the  third  day ;  but  the  implication  of  the  text  is  that 
it  was  after  the  quickening,  or  actual  beginning  of  the 
resurrection.  Our  conception  of  it  at  this  point  will  be 
determined  by  our  general  view  of  the  resurrection.  If 
we  conceive  of  the  resurrection  as  a  supernatural  de- 
velopment of  life,  a  process  of  glorification,  not  a 
catastrophic  change,  then  this  Scripture,  together  with 
others,  would  indicate  three  chief  epochs  in  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ ;  viz.,  his  presence  and  working  among 
the  departed  in  the  beginning  of  the  new  life  made  after 
the  spirit ;  his  appearance  on  earth  to  the  disciples  in 
a  body,  in  which  his  personal  identity  was  recognizable, 
but  which  as  possessed  of  higher  powers  was  by  no 
means  the  "  self-same  body  "  which  died — the  period  of 
"  manifested  "  resm-rection  ;  and,  finally,  the  vanishing 
into  invisibility,  the  conclusion  and  perfecting  of  the 
resurrection  in  the  ascension  and  glorification  of  the 
Lord.  The  spirits  in  prison  may  be,  accordingly,  in  the 
beginning  or  first  era  of  the  resurrection-life,  having 
the  pledge  of  its  final  completion  in  the  glorified  hu- 
manity of  Him  who  is  the  first  fruits  of  the  resurrection. 
4.  Christ  in  the  first  moments  of  his  quickened  life 
went  to  Hades  to  preach  the  Gospel.  Any  other  inter- 
pretation of  this  word,  as  the  idea  that  it  was  a  preach- 
ing of  condemnation,  is,  as  Huther  remarks,  "  a  wholly 
arbitrary  supposition."  As  the  rising  Redeemer  and 
Lord,  Christ  entered  the  region  of  departed  spirits.     In 


APPENDIX.  183 

the  fresh,  opening  power  of  the  resurrection  and  the 
life  lie  preached  to  the  dead.  To  imagine  that  he 
went  there  in  the  new-born  joj  of  his  triumph  over 
death  to  tantalize  hopeless  spirits  by  announcing  glad 
tidings  which  could  do  them  no  good,  would  be  to  deny 
the  very  spirit  of  Christ,  and  to  contradict  the  love  of 
God  which  he  had  just  shown  upon  the  cross.  5.  We 
rightly  infer  that  this  preaching  the  Gospel  among  the 
dead  by  the  rising  Lord,  was  the  completion  of  his 
prophetic  office,  being  necessary  to  the  universality  of 
his  gospel,  and  the  absoluteness  of  his  work  of  redemp- 
tion. 6.  The  mention  of  a  particular  class  of  the  dead 
may  have  been  suggested  by  the  figure  of  baptism  in 
the  context ;  but  these  departed  spirits  certainly  could 
not  have  been  selected  by  Christ  to  receive  his  message 
on  account  of  any  pre-emmence  in  piety  or  faith.  On 
the  contrary,  it  appears  that  they  were  spirits  of  men 
who  had  lived  in  one  of  the  worst  ages  of  human  his- 
tory ;  that  they  had  been  disobedient,  or  unbelievers ; 
and  the  expression  "  in  prison  "  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  they  were  not  in  paradise,  or  partakers  of  the  freest 
spiritual  life  of  Hades.  Inferences  from  obscure  Scrip- 
tures should  be  put  forward  with  great  hesitancy  ;  but 
if  any  inference  be  permissible  from  these  cir- 
cumstances, instead  of  saying  with  Calvin  that  these 
were  spirits  of  the  "pious  dead,"  we  should  be  war- 
ranted rather  in  surmising  that  they  represented  the 
lowest  and  most  sunken  of  the  dead  before  Christ's 


1 84  APPENDIX. 

coming  ;  and  that  as  he  sent  his  disciples  into  the  high- 
ways and  hedges  to  invite  the  blind  and  lame  to  the 
wedding-supper  of  the  Lamb,  so  he  descended  himself 
to  the  very  bottom  of  Hades  with  his  gospel.  Thus 
the  universality  of  his  preaching  would  enable  him  to 
become  at  last  the  judge  both  of  the  quick  and  the 
dead.  From  1st  Peter  iv.  6,  Huther  (in  Meyer)  con- 
cludes that  by  the  dead  are  there  meant  "  all  whom 
Christ  at  his  coming  shall  find  as  dead."  "  It  is  said 
that  to  all — irrespective  of  when  or  how — who  are  dead 
at  the  time  of  the  judgment,  the  Gospel  shall  have 
been  preached."  7.  ]N^othing  is  said  or  implied  concern- 
ing the  effect  of  Christ's  preaching  among  the  dead. 

III.  To  these  passages  relative  to  the  intermediate 
life  should  be  added  those  expressions  which  indicate 
that  the  Apostles  looked  forward,  not  so  much  to  the 
hour  of  death,  as  to  the  last  great  day,  the  final  coming 
of  Christ,  for  the  end  and  confii-mation  of  their  faith. 
Phil.  i.  6.  1st  Peter  v.  4.  2d  Tim.  i.  12,  iv.  8.  1st  Thes. 
iv.  13-17.  Col.  iii.  4.  1st  John  iii.  2. 

lY.  Besides  these  direct  teachings  and  suggestions 
of  the  Kew  Testament,  there  are  other  passages  which 
throw  indirect  light  upon  this  subject,  or  themselves 
receive  light  from  the  Scriptm-es  already  considered: 
e.g.^  Rev.  vi.  9-11 ;  Jn.  xiv.  3 — an  intimation  that  the 
risen  Lord  will  still  have  a  work  of  preparation 
to  do  for  his  disciples.  Mark  xvi.  15,  16  ;  1st  Tim.  ii. 
4-6 ;    Luke  xix.  10 ;  1st  John  ii.  2 — assertions  of  the 


APPENDIX.  185 

universality  of  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.  Luke 
vii.  11-15 — prolongation  upon  earth  of  probation  after 
death  had  ensued,  which  could  not  be  if  at  death  the 
final  judgment  takes  place.  Matt.  12.  32 — implication, 
perhaps,  of  forgiveness  for  other  sins  than  that  against 
the  Holj  Ghost  in  the  Avorld  to  come.  1st  Cor.  xv.  29  ; 
Eev.  XX.  13-14. 

Such  are  the  Biblical  elements  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
intermediate  life,  and  they  ought  not  to  be  quietly 
ignored  by  orthodox  theology,  or  left  unadjusted  to  our 
whole  teaching  concerning  the  last  things.  If  it  be 
said  that  there  is  danger  that  the  consideration  of  these 
obscure  passages  might  lead  individuals  to  whom  the 
Gospel  is  now  preached  to  cherish  fallacious  hopes  of  a 
second  probation  after  death,  it  is  also  true  that  the 
failure  to  take  into  account  these  hints  and  possibilities 
of  Scripture  may  involve  for  us  the  righteousness  of  the 
government  of  God  in  great  difficulty,  and  betray  us 
into  an  un-Scriptural  dogmatism  with  regard  to  God's 
dealing  with  those  who  die  without  the  Gospel.  The 
only  really  dangerous  thing  is  error — to  go  beyond,  or 
to  fall  short  of,  the  truth  of  revelation.  Komanism  in 
Luther's  day  had  gone  far  beyond  it ;  but  that  is  no 
reason  why  Protestantism  should  now  fall  short  of  it. 

This  whole  subject  of  the  intermediate  life,  as  was  in- 
timated above  (p.  182  ),  needs  further  to  be  thought  out 
in  connection  with  improved  modern  conceptions  of  the 
resurrection.     If  we  regard  the  resurrection  as  a  process 


1 86  APPENDIX. 

of  spiritual  embodiment,  beginning  at  the  death  of  the 
individual,  but  dependent  for  its  full  completion  and 
manifestation  upon  the  conclusion  of  this  whole  world- 
economj ;  then  it  will  be  easier  to  harmonize  in  one 
consistent  idea  those  Scriptures  which  imply  that  the 
resurrection  is  "  a  present  and  continuous  reality," 
wrought  through  Christ's  present  power,  and  those  pas- 
sages in  which  it  is  regrarded  as  a  still  future  event. 
The  successive  epochs  in  Christ's  rising  from  the  dead 
into  the  glory  of  the  heavens  become  thus  typical  and 
light-giving.  It  is  a  possible  suggestion  that,  as  Jesus' 
resurrection  was  manifested  for  our  sakes  (visibility  not 
being  a  constant,  or  necessary  part  of  it),  so  the  first 
resurrection,  Rev.  xx.  5,  may  be  likewise  some  excep- 
tional manifestation  of  the  power  of  the  resurrection  in 
the  appearance  of  saints  fitted  and  chosen  for  some 
special  ministery,  who,  nevertheless,  must  wait  with 
all  the  dead,  both  the  great  and  small  (Ibid.,  11-12),  for 
the  last  great  day  to  attain  in  the  new  heavens  and  the 
new  earth  their  full  and  final  perfection. 

I  have  elsewhere  indicated  my  views  upon  the  process 
of  the  resurrection  ("  Old  Faiths  in  Ifew  Light,"  chap. 
viii.) ;  but  while  a  discussion  of  the  better  form  in 
which  this  blessed  hope  may  be  conceived  did  not  fall 
within  the  immediate  scope  of  these  sermons,  I  would 
call  attention  here  to  the  importance  of  considering  it 
in  close  connection  with  the  doctrine  of  the  inter- 
mediate life.     This  seems  to  me  to  be  the  missing  link 


APPENDIX.  1 87 

in  Dr.  Whiton's  recent  book  upon  the  "  Gospel  of  the 
Resurrection."  While  bringing  out  forcibly  the  Scrip- 
tural testimony  to  a  present  and  continuous  resurrec- 
tion, Dr.  Whiton  seems  to  me  to  fail  to  grasp  the  full 
doctrine  of  the  Bible,  because  he  misses  this  idea  of  a 
resurrection  begun,  indeed,  at  death,  and  begun  according 
to  spiritual  law,  but  dependent  for  its  completion  upon 
the  connection  of  the  individual  with  the  whole  creation 
and  its  glorification  in  Christ.  (Rom.  viii.  19-23.)  The 
individual  neither  in  this  world,  nor  the  world  to  come, 
can  be  made  perfect  alone.  The  fruition  of  the  hope 
of  the  resurrection-life  is  conditioned  upon  the  consum- 
mation of  all  things.  The  resurrection  is  not  merely  a 
development  according  to  the  spirit  from  within,  as 
Dr.  Whiton  rightly  holds,  but  also  a  development  con- 
ditioned upon  great  cosmic  forces.  (See  Dorner,  Opus 
cit.,  §  958.) 

This  idea  would  relieve  Dr.  Whiton's  argument  of  no 
little  strain  in  the  exegesis  of  those  Scriptures  which 
lead  hope  forward  to  the  second  coming  of  Christ,  or 
final  form  of  His  presence,  and  the  regeneration  of  all 
things.  It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  in  the 
Biblical  philosophy  of  salvation  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual is  bound  up  with  the  life  of  the  whole,  and 
reaches  its  fulness  and  completion  only  in  the  liberty 
for  which  the  whole  creation  waits. 


lS8  APPENDIX. 


DiscoTTRSE  V. — Note  9,  p.  128. 


The  belief  of  the  primitive  Church  respecting  prayers 
for  the  dead  has  recently  been  collated  and  carefully 
examined  by  Canon  Luckock  in  his  book,  "After 
Death."  "  The  conclusion,"  he  writes,  "  from  a  full 
consideration  of  the  foregoing  arguments  is,  that  the 
practice  of  praying  for  the  faithful  dead  was  universally 
adopted  in  primitive  times ;  and  though,  as  we  have 
seen,  for  wise  reasons  it  was  allowed  to  drop  almost 
entirely  out  of  our  public  worship,  yet  such  a  state  of 
things  cannot  possibly  be  regarded  as  permanent "  (p. 
252).  Referring  to  the  mediaeval  abuse  of  this  primi- 
tive custom  which  led  to  its  abandonment  in  the  Re- 
formation, he  says :  "  We  may  well  believe  that  in  the 
temporary  obscuration  of  the  primitive  practice,  and 
the  almost  complete  withdrawal  of  what  is  confessedly 
a  most  consolatory  doctrine,  we  can  see  a  distinct  sign 
of  a  punitive  purpose,  and  a  visitation  upon  this  and 
preceding  generations  for  other  men's  sins  "  (p.  245). 
It  is  certainly  a  fair  question  whether  in  a  deep  con- 
sciousness of  the  oneness  of  Christ's  kingdom  in  this 
world  and  the  world  to  come,  we  might  not  now  safely 
avail  ourselves  in  public  worship,  as  well  as  in  private 
devotion,  of  such  expressions  with  regard  to  the  dead 
as  are  to  be  found  in  the  epitaphs  in  the  Catacombs, 
and  in  the  ancient  liturgies  of  the  church.     So  St.  Paul 


APPENDIX.  189 

expressed  out  of  a  full  heart  his  wish  that  the  Lord 
might  grant  to  Onesiphorus  to  find  mercy  in  that  day. 
2d  Tim.  i.  18. 

DiscouKSE  V. — Note  10,  p.  137. 

While  I  have  not  cared  to  burden  these  pages  with 
citations  from  the  extensive  modern  literature  upon 
these  subjects,  I  would  acknowledge  my  sense  of  the 
great  value  of  Prof.  Corner's  grand  contribution  to 
theology  in  his  "  Glaubenslehre,"  the  last  volume  of 
which,  containing  his  discussion  of  eschatology,  has 
come  to  hand  since  these  discourses  were  prepared. 
He  puts  forward  the  element  of  fi-eedom  as  the  reason 
for  dogmatic  uncertainty  in  our  judgment  of  the  final 
state  of  all  men  (2d  Bd.  §.  968).  His  whole  discus- 
sion of  these  themes  I  would  commend  to  the  attention 
of  theologians  of  our  own  churches  as  an  example  of 
the  calm,  catholic  tone  and  temper  which  is  greatly 
needed  in  the  consideration  of  these  difficult  questions 
u^on  which  Revelation  is  fragmentary,  and  where  too 
confident  judgment  may  easily  betray  us  into  untruth- 
fulness to  the  heart  of  faith. 


Old  Faiths  in  New  Light 

BY 

NEWMAN    SMYTH, 

Author    of   '*  The   Religious    Feeling,'''* 


One  Volume,  12mo,  cloth,         -         _         -         $1.50. 


This  work  aims  to  meet  a  growing  need  by  gathering  materials  of 
faith  which  have  been  quarried  by  many  specialists  in  their  own  depart- 
ments of  Biblical  study  and  scientific  research,  and  by  endeavoring  to 
put  these  results  of  recent  scholarship  together  according  to  one  leading 
idea  in  a  modern  construction  of  old  faith.  Mr.  Smyth's  book  is  remark- 
able no  less  for  its  learning  and  wide  acquaintance  with  prevailing  modes 
of  thought,  than  for  its  fairness  and  judicial  spirit. 


CRITICAL  IVOTICES. 


"The  author  is  logical  and  therefore  clear.  He  also  is  master  of  a  singularly 
attractive  literary  style.  Few  writers,  whose  books  come  under  our  eye,  succeed  in 
treating  metaphy.sical  and  philosophical  themes  in  a  manner  at  once  so  forcible  and  so 
interesting.  We  speak  strongly  about  this  hook,  because  we  think  it  exceptionally 
valuable.  It  is  just  such  a  book  as  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  all  intelligent  men  and 
women  who  have  received  an  education  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  read  intelligently 
about  such  subjects  as  are  discussed  herein,  and  the  number  of  such  persons  is  very 
much  larger  than  some  people  think." — Congregntionalist. 

"  We  have  before  had  occa.sion  to  notice  the  force  and  elegance  of  this  writer,  and 
his  new  book  shows  scholarship  even  more  advanced.  *  *  *  When  we  say.  with 
some  knowledge  of  how  much  is  undertaken  by  the  saying,  that  there  is  probably  no  book 
of  moderate  compass  which  combines  in  greater  degree  clearness  of  style  with  profundity 
of  subject  and  of  reasoning,  we  fulfil  simple  duty  to  an  author  whose  success  is  all  the 
more  marked  and  gratifying  from  the  multitude  of  kindred  attempts  with  which  we  have 
been  flooded  from  all  sorts  of  pens." — Presbyterian. 

"The  book  impresses  us  as  clear,  cogent  and  helpful,  as  vigorous  in<fityle  as  it  is 
honest  in  purpose,  and  calculated  to  render  valuable  service  in  showing  that  religion  and 
science  are  not  antagonists  but  allies,  and  that  both  lead  up  toward  the  one  God.  We 
fancy  that  a  good  many  readers  of  this  volume  will  entertam  toward  the  author  a  feeling 
of  sincere  personal  gratitude." — Boston  Journal. 

"  On  the  whole,  we  do  not  know  of  a  book  which  may  better  be  commended  to 
thoughtful  persons  whose  minds  have  been  unsettled  by  objections  of  modern  thought. 
It  will  be  found  a  wholesome  work  for  every  minister  in  the  land  to  read." 

— Examiner  and  Chronicle. 

•'  It  IS  a  long  time  since  we  have  met  with  an  abler  or  fresher  theological  treatise 
than  Old  Faiths  in  New  Light,  by  Newman  Smyth,  an  author  who  in  his  work  on 
"'J'he  Religious  Feeling"  has  already  shown  ability  as  an  expounder  of  Christian 
doctrine."  — Independent. 


*,*  For    sale    by    all   botksellers,   or    sent  postpaid,    upon    receipt    of  price, 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S   SONS, 

Nos.  743  ANu  745  Broauvvav,  New  York 


THE 

RELIGIOUS  FEELING 

BY 

Rev.  NEWMAN  SMYTH. 


One  Volume,  12ino,  cloth,        .....        $1.25. 


In  this  volume  Mr.  Smyth  has  it  for  his  object  to  formulate  the 
religious  feeling  as  a  capacity  of  the  human  mind,  and  to  vindicate  its 
claims  to  authority.  He  sets  before  himself  at  the  outset  the  task  of 
convicting  sceptical  philosophy  out  of  its  own  nioutli.  The  work  is 
thoroughly  logical,  and  displays  a  familiarity  with  the  most  recent  German 
thought  which  is  rarely  to  be  found. 


CRITICAL     NOTICES. 

Mr.  Joseph  Cook's  opinion  of  ''  Tke   Religious  Feeling  :" 

"  A  fresh,  keen  book,  copies  of  which  I  wish  were  scattered  broadcast  throughout  the 
land  : '"  and,  in  a  letter  to  the  author,  "  I  admire  exceedingly  ihe  familiarity  you  exhibit 
with  the  lat-st  scientific  literature.  The  reverent  spirit  with  which  you  treat  all  Christian 
truth,  the  elegance  of  your  style  ;  the  searching  originality  of  many  a  page  in  your 
•olume,  insure  it  a  lasting,  and,  I  hope,  a  wide  usefulness." 

"The  argument  in  its  clearness,  force  and  illustrations,  has  never,  to  our  knowledge, 
been  better  slated.  Mr.  Smyth  has  brought  to  his  work  a  clear,  analytical  mind,  an 
Extensive  knowledge  of  German  philosophical  thought,  and  an  intellectual  familiarity 
with  the  later  English  schools.  He  does  his  own  thinking,  and  writes  with  perspicuity 
Hnd  vigor." — T/te  AdTiince. 

"  Upon  his  own  field  of  metaphysical  and  moral  philosophy  he  displays  a  degree  of 
ciear,  acute,  and  analytic  reasoning  which  is  of  a  high  ord^r  and  exceedingly  effective, 
Soth  in  demolishing  the  semi-materialistic  philosophy  of  Darwin  and  Spencer,  and  in 
lemonstrating   the   spiritual    nature    and     supernatural    origin    of   the    human    soul." 

—  Chicago  Interior. 

"  We  welcome  this  volume  as  a  valuable  contribution  to  that  type  of  thought  in  the 
vindication  of  theism  which  is  specially  demanded  at  the  present  time.  The  discu^sion 
throughout  evinces  much  reading  and  vigorous  thought,  and  is  conducted  with  marked 
candor  and  ability." — Neiu    Englufider. 

"  We  can  cordially  recommend  the  reader  to  follow  the  author  through  his  entire 
argument,  for  it  is  both  brief  and  clear.  The  book  will  form  a  help  to  many  perplexed 
minds,  and  it  epitomizes  very  satisfactorily  some  of  the  best  results  of  conservative 
German  thought."  —  Citicinnati  Gazette. 

"This  very  interesting  book  is  always  eloquent  and  suggestive.  What  makes  it 
especially  noteworthy,  seems  to  us  its  significance  in  relation  to  our  day." 

— New  York  World, 

"The  argument  contained  in  these  pages  is  eminently  satisfactory.  It  is  one  of  the 
best  answers  to  Darwin  and  his  followers  we  have  ever  met  with." — The  Churchman. 


*tf*  For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or   will  be  sent,  J>re/>aid,  -upon  receij>t  o/ price, 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS, 

Nos.  743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


9 


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